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PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 



OF THE 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 



COMPILED BY 



SMART & NOBLE. 



WASHINGTON COUNTY POST, 

CAMBRIDGE, N. Y. : 

1874. 



hlZf 
.(LIU 






4773. 1873 

CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY. 



The celebration of the centennial anniversary of the founding 
of the old town of Cambridge was first suggested by Hon. 
Anson Ingraham, of the present town of Cambridge, in a 
brief letter dated February 28, 1S73, addressed to the editor 
of the Washington County Post, calling attention to the fact 
that we had entered on the one hundredth year of the history 
of the old town, and suggesting that the event be commemo- 
rated. This letter was published, with editorial comment, 
seconding its suggestions, and recommending that at the ensu- 
ing town meetings, then at hand, in the three towns com- 
prised in the boundaries of the old town, five gentlemen be 
appointed from each town, there to form a central committee 
to arrange for the proper observance of the occasion. This 
recommendation was acted on and the following gentlemen 
appointed : 

Cambridge — Thomas S. Green. William Dimick, Cortland 
Skinner, Berry Long, John Ashton. 

White Creek — R. King Crocker, John Larmon, W. I. 
Perry, George Barker, James Ellis. 

Jackson — George McGeoch. Thomas B. Lourie, William 
Thompson. William McMillan, William Watkins, J. E. 
Robertson. 



CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

These gentlemen met for the first time on the 13th of March, 
1S73. at the office of Hon. R. K. Crocker, and organized by 
electing Cortland Skinner. Chairman, John Ashton, Secretary. 
The committee effected its permanent organization by elect- 
ing Cortland Skinner chairman and R. K. Crocker secretary. 
The desirability and expedienc) of a celebration was dis- 
cussed, and the committee was unanimous in the conclusion 
that the event that had called them together was too impor- 
tant to pass unnoticed, and that the work of preparation 
should be begun at once. The idea of having a celebration 
was a new one. and consequently those interested had two 
difficulties to contend with. — hist, to awaken the interest of 
the people, and second, to arrange some suitable plan tor the 
exercises: that both difficulties were met and happily over- 
come is a matter of history that, for the honor of the town and 
the committee, should he recorded. After due deliberation 
the following plan was adopted, to hold the centennial anni- 
versary exercises on the 29th day of August, in Fuller's 
Grove, in th^ village of Cambridge, to have a sketch of the 
history of the town prepared, to have addresses by eminent 
s'ins of the town who had gone out to do their work in a 
wider held, to have a town dinner at which the entire assem- 
blage who should gather on that day should sit down ; in fine 
to make the day not one of pomp and parade, but one of 
hearty, though homely, good cheer, a large family gathering 
;it which all the sons and daughters of the old town of Cam- 
bridge should sit down in kindly remembrance of the hard- 
ships of their ancestors, which, through the providence of 
God, had turned to such blessing t<> their descendants. The 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 5 

general committee in charge appointed to assist in carrying 
out the idea the following committees : 

Executive Committee— Cortland Skinner, George Mc 
Geoch, William Eldridge, Dr. John Ashton, R. King Crocker. 

On Finance— J. L. Hunt. William McMillan, James Ellis. 

On Invitations— Charles D. Warner. E. J. McKie, T. 
B. Lourie. 

On Refreshments — T. C. Gifford, William Eldridge, 
Clark Woodard, Julius Collins, T. D. Oviatt. L. C. Fuller. 
S. W. Crosby, William Randies. A. B. NcNish, C. E. 
Stroud. William Dimick, John Gow, Edward Cramer, A. II. 
Comstock. J. H. Merchant. William Kenyon, Dr. T. C. 
Wallace. 

On Grounds— L. Fletcher. S. Fuller. 

On Decorations — A. I. Porter. James Cady. G. M. Mc- 
Kie. 

On Vocal Music — John Shiland. Andrew McLean. C. O. 
Volenti ne. A. S. Fassett, Mason Prentiss. 

On Band— Edward Whiteside. James S. Smart. Henry 

Ackley. x 

On Toasts — Henry Noble, H. K. Sharp, David Burch, 

James E. Robertson. 

On Resolutions — D. M. Westfall, Thomas Shiland, 
Allen Crandell, Henry Holden, George Arnott. C. B. Carter. 
C. T. Hawley, W. I. Peny, B. F. McNitt. 

On Reception— J. S. Smart, James Harper, John C. 
Simpson. Charles Porter, Azor Culver. J. W. Eddy. B. P. 
Crocker, Harvey Carpenter. 

The following were appointed officers of the day : 

Honorary President— John Weir. 



6 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

Acting President — Rev. Henry Gordqn. 

Vice-Presidents— White Creek : Benjamin Crocker, John 
K. Dyer, F. A. Fuller. Dr. II. C. Gray, James Thompson. 
Ahira Eldridge. Cambridge: Anson Ingraham, David Rob- 
ertson, John Stevenson, Nathan Gifford, Henry Whiteside. 
Jacob Quackenbush. Jackson: Elisha Billings, John Robert- 
son. George Maxwell, Col. E. W. Clapp, Elisha Kenyon, 
Jonathan Warner. 

Marshal — J.J. Gray. 

Assistant Marshal — J. B. Rice. 

In order to secure a thorough canvassing of the old town 
for supplies, a ladies' committee was appointed to make the 
arrangements for the dinner, consisting of the following 
named ladies: Mrs. John M. Stevenson. Mrs. Clark^Yood- 
ard, Mrs. William Eldridge, Mrs. L. C. Fuller. Mrs. William 
Green, Mrs. Charles I). Warner. Mrs. Berry Long, Mrs. M. P. 
Barton. Mrs. William Randies. Mrs. Thomas Gifford, Mr--. 
Charles Rice. Mrs. William King, Mrs. David Arnold, Mrs. 
GilesRussell. Mrs. William Moore. Mrs. A. M. Sherman. Mrs. 
A.B.McNish, Mrs. J. Larmon, Mrs. James Hill, Mrs. William 
). Stevenson, Mrs. William Kenyon. Mr^. Charles Cottrell, 
Mrs. J. McFarland, Mrs. S. I. Stroud. Mrs. Charles Austin. 
Mrs. Alonzo Lee, Mrs. Pardon Tripp, Mrs. Andrew McLean, 
Mis. Henry Dunham. Mrs. George McMillan, Mrs. James 
Gilchrist. Mrs. William McKie. Mrs. J. B. Hanna. Mrs. 
lUnr\ Coulter, Mrs. John Hutchins, Mrs. George Briggs, 
Mrs. L. Sweet. Mrs. J. II. Merchant. Mrs. William Fowler. 
Mis. Henry Darrow, Mrs. C. Darrow, Mrs. John Gifford, 
Mrs. T. E. Kenyon, Mrs. P. Haxton, Mrs. C. Carter. Mrs. 
( reorge Coulter. Mis. lames ]•]. Robertson, Mrs. John Coulter. 



OLD TOWN OF CAM BRIDGE. 7 

Mrs. William Dimick, Mrs. Hiram Sisson, Mrs. Thomas 
Oviatt, Miss E. Crosby, Miss J. Gilchrist, Miss F. Fuller, 
Miss M. McKie, Miss M. Skellie, Miss L. Pratt, Mrs. 
Thomas Whiteside, Mrs. James McKie, Mrs. John Money- 
penny, Mrs. E. Judson. 

As the day approached the enthusiasm rose, and all the 
residents of the old town were fairly enlisted in the work and 
were handsomely seconding the efforts of the Committees. 
Cheering responses were received from long absent sons and 
daughters of the town, and the success of the enterprise was 
w T ell assured some time before the labors of the committee 
culminated. The Washington County Post, published at 
the village of Cambridge, gave a full account of the day's pro- 
ceedings, with reports of the speeches, in its issue of September 
5, and it is only to put the matter in more convenient form for 
preservation that this book has been published. We take from 
the columns of the Post the following account of the exercises 
of the day : 

" After the work of the various committees had been done 
and the plans all made to make the centennial celebration of 
the old town of Cambridge a success, there was still a con- 
tingency about the matter so large that it could make or mar 
. the day— this was the weather. A rainy clay would have 
been so disastrous that the committee steadily refused to take 
account of it. If it rained it was total failure. The grand 
old sun then never looked brighter or pleasanter to those in- 
terested, than when, on Friday last, it rolled up above the 
mountains and gave unmistakable tokens that we were to have 
a cletir day* At an early hour the people began to flock into 
town, and by the time the hour arrived for organizing the 



S CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

procession the streetswere filled. The arrival of the morning 

train from the south brought a large accession. Doring's 
Band, which was on the train, was marched by the marshals 
to Fuller's Block, where the Masonic lodge was in waiting. 
The lodge was then escorted down Main street to the engine 
house, where it was joined by the (hay Engine Company- 
The march was then resumed to the Academy grounds. On 
the arrival of the lodge and fire company the procession was 
organized, and marched in the following order: 
Grand Marshal. J.J. Gray, Esq. 
Assistant Marshal. J. B. Rice. Esq. 

Doring's Hand. 

J. f. Gray Engine Company, No. i. 

( )fficers of the Day in Carriages. 

Guests from abroad. 

Committees. 

The Old Folks' Wagon. 

Young America. 

Knights of the Olden Time. 

Town Officers of Old Cambridge-. 

Village Officers. 

Masonic Fraternity. 

Citizens generally. 

"The firstand only mishap occurred at this juncture. The 

horses attached to the carriage that contained the Presidents of 

the day, |ohn Weir and Rev. Henry Gordon, became frightened 

at the music, reared up and fell fiat. For a moment the ex- 

citement was intense, but fortunately the horses were so 

tangled in the harness that they could not rise. Old Mr. 

Weir was helped out of the carriage and another procured. 



OLD TOWX OF CAMBRIDGE. 9 

when the march was resumed. The procession moved down 
Main Street to South Park, and down that street to the grove. 
The woods were alive with people, and it was with difficulty 
that the officers of the day and the speakers reached the stand. 
The arrangements in the grove were very good. The main 
stand was covered and boarded up at the back, and was large 
enough to accommodate about sixty persons. The stand for 
the band was on the left, and a little advanced ; on the right 
was a stand for the singers, and in front of it board seats were 
prepared for about two thousand people. The scene from 
the stand at the moment of the organization was grand. As 
far as one could see into the woods there was one solid mass 
of people. There must have been in the grove at that time at 
least eight thousand people, with probably a couple of thou- 
sand more about the streets of the village, since the streets of 
the village were lined with people while the procession was 
passing. The really most difficult thing of the whole business 
was to furnish dinner for the crowd. For this purpose five 
hundred feet of table had been prepared, one for the press, 
one for the old people over seventy, and the third for the 
crowd. At the press and at the old folks' table seats were 
prepared ; at the others it was in lunch style. To have seated 
all was simply impossible, and the writer, when looking out 
on the crowd from the grand stand, had great misgivings as 
to the ability of the committee in charge of the tables to sup- 
pi v the people with food. But the larder was equal to the 
occasion. There was abundance, and of the best variety, and 
this part of the programme was as great a success as the other 
parts. There might have been a few who were not supplied, 
but it was from diffidence on their part, not for want of pro- 



IO CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

visions. It was proposed to have a roster made of the old 
residents who were present, but the attempt was abandoned 
as impossible. The music by the band and the singing by 
the choir was good, the oratory above the average of such 
occasions, though of course it was impossible for any of the 
speakers to make all the people hear what they said. In 
brief, the whole affair, from beginning to end. was a success, 
gratifying to all concerned. 

After the exercises were over the large crowd dispersed, and 
by dark all was as quiet as usual in the village. The com- 
mittees all did well. The hardest labor, however, fell on the 
committee on ground and tables, but no committee did better 
than it. The number of old people present was quite remark- 
able. The boys of seventy years were of no account : the 
honored chairman, with his ninety-six years, made them 
seem young. Many of them, however, did not look as vig- 
orous as he. .V man who could stand the fatigue and excite- 
ment of such a day as Friday must have left yet several years 
of life in him. When the old man took his seal as the 
honorary President of the day, it hardly could be believed 
that here was one that was born soon after the town, and yet 
John Weir lacks only four years to his centennial. The Rev. 
Henry Gordon, of Coila, was the acting President of the day, 
and discharged the duties well. The stand was tilled with 
the old men of the town and distinguished strangers." 

Rev. Henry Gordon, upon introducing the exercises, said: 
This, my friends, is a great day for old Cambridge. It is trie 
Centennial of the old town, and you can easily discern the 
importance attaching to it by casting your eye over the vast 
sea of upturned faces. There are some things people will not 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. I I 

allow to die. Too many great events have taken place, too 
many incidents have occurred, too many good men and 
women have lived in this old town not to keep alive the 
reminiscences that cluster around it. And let me say to you 
now, just at the very outset, that you are scarcely aware of 
the trouble persons have been at to get up this celebration to 
keep alive in, and refresh the memory with, these important 
events. I will not do injustice to any person. There may 
be something in reference to this toward the close of the day, 
but I do know that certain committees have worked nisfht 
and day, and spared neither toil, nor pains, nor expense, to 
have this a grand success, and the result is visible to every 
person. It is right and proper, on such an occasion as this, 
and with reference to the past, that we should commence this 
meeting with prayer to the throne of heavenly grace, and 
first in the order of exercises will be prayer by Rev. W. B. 
Shortt. 

INVOCATION PRAYER. 

Rev. Mr. Shortt offered the following prayer : O God, 
thou alone art from everlasting to everlasting God. Thou 
art the same, yesterday, to-day and forever, without variable- 
ness or shadow of turning. We are the workmanship of 
thine hands — the creatures whom thy power has made and 
thy presence preserves. O thou God of our fathers, and God 
of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of all who put 
their trust in thee, we invoke thy blessing upon this assembly. 
We desire to thank thee, O Lord, for the distinguished privi- 
leges with which we have been favored all our lives long. 
Goodness and mercy hath followed us all the days of our 
lives, and we would especially thank thee, O God, on this 



12 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

dav of remembrance, the Centennial, for the character of the 
devoted men and women who first settled this old town of 
Cambridge, who feared God, honored thee in keeping thy 
commandments, and glorified thee, their Creator, their pre- 
server and their Redeemer. They have left to succeeding 
generations blessings of inestimable value. O Lord, help us 
to realize thy goodness to us in these latter days, and help us 
to cherish and maintain those heaven given privileges which 
have been handed down to us through the generations that 
are now gone. We have thy Sabbaths and sanctuary privi- 
leges, the gospel is preached, we enjoy social, civil, religious 
and educational privileges above multitudes of our fellow 
men. O may our hearts this day be lifted up in gratitude to 
that God who gives us all these things richly to enjoy, and 
we pray we may be impressed with this one thought. " To 
whom much is given, of them also shall much be required." 
O God, hear us, bless us, and Thy great name. Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit, one God, shall have the glory and the 
praise. Amen. 

Music by the Band. 

Rev. Mr. Gordon : We are glad to see so many strangers 
present, and so many from the different portions of the county, 
whose names are household words with us. We are glad to 
see so many of the sons and daughters of the old town of 
Cambridge — but I will not anticipate. An expression of our 
joy will devolve upon another — upon one of the boys of Cam- 
bridge, who has his head-quarters here at Fort Grant, over 
the way. He is not yet full grown, but when he does come 
to the full grown proportions of manhood, we need have no 
tears that lie will reflect anv discredit on the old town of 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 1 3 

Cambridge. I have the pleasure of introducing Hon. James 
S. Smart. 

WELCOME ADDRESS BY HON. J. S. SMART. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : It is deputed 
to me to give formal expression of the welcome which some 
of the sons and daughters of old Cambridge, who have 
abided on the hill sides and in the valleys which our common 
ancestors settled more than a hundred years ago, to-day ex- 
tend to those children of the town who have made their homes 
elsewhere. It has been planned to gather in, as far as could 
be, all who were entitled to attend this township reunion, 
not only those that were to the manor born, but friends of 
the neighboring towns whose histories are so closely allied 
to that of our town. Though a hundred years have rolled 
away since our fathers met at the house of Captain John 
Wood, and many great changes have come over the old town, 
we are still living in the way our fathers lived and invite you 
back to no pageant, but as a sturdy farming community — to 
a simple re-union in the woods, with homely fare but hearty 
hospitality. This day is as much yours as ours, as the history 
to be read to us is as much the history of your fathers as ours. 
Those who are to address you are distinguished sons, but not 
residents. We feel it a privilege to ask you all back to your 
native town to meet with those who have tarried in the homes 
of their ancestors and with the friends whom we can hardly 
to-day classify, so well have the towns of this good county 
blended. This town of our fathers has been large enough 
and rich enough to divide into three separate townships, 
but the memories stirred by this centennial year have obliter- 
ated for the present the divisions of later years, and whether 



14 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

in the sub-division known as Jackson, or in the one known as 
White Creek, we are all to-day sons of one common mother, 
welcoming back truant children on this her natal anniversary 
day. In the year our fathers founded this town the first 
church of Cambridge was organized. It is a fact to be proud 
of that no history can treat of the time when Cambridge had 
no church. The children of such an ancestry should" and do 
take pride that in the town to-day the spires of twelve churches 
are pointing heavenward, and you are to-day welcomed back 
to the midst of a people who walk in the fear and admonition 
of the Lord. The fathers of this town, at an early date, gave 
themselves to the establishment of schools, of which these 
honored men who are with us to-day are the jewels. These 
schools have been kept alive, and, though to-day in a transi- 
tion state, we welcome you back with the confident assurance 
that the cloud is but temporary, and that out of the feeling 
this day engendered will come union and strength that shall 
enable us to do even better than our fathers. One hundred 
years ago the founders of this town were received by savage 
beasts and wilder men. They found these valleys, swamps. 
and the hills covered with forests scarce ever penetrated by 
the sun. In the fear of the Lord they laid the foundation of 
this town, and he has caused it to blossom like a garden. 
To-day, as this town welcomes her children and friends, its 
hills are laden with corn, its valleys yield bountiful crops, its 
people are dwelling in comfortable houses, peace and security 
arc in its borders. It boasts not of its looms, it points you to 
no row of splendid houses, nor calls your attenion to the hum 
of busy concerns, but it invites you to view a valley as fail- as 
tin- land of promise, to look at the wood-crowned hills which 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 15 

cluster about it as emeralds set about a diamond. It boasts 
not of its great names nor the rent rolls of her sons, but it 
welcomes you to the homes of a prosperous people, not made 
haughty by great wealth, nor cast down by abject poverty. 
But why should I detain you for a mere form of words. 
You are not strangers to Cambridge or Cambridge hospitality, 
and your own generous hearts, first nurtured on this soil, tes- 
tify more eloquently than can I how welcome you are to-day 
to share with us the pleasure of this occasion. This vener- 
able man who has come to us from the early days of the 
town, who honors this day with his presence, comes here on 
behalf of the past to bid you welcome. The children playing 
about the grove have brighter faces for your coming, and 
speaking for age and youth, in the name of the people of the 
town, I bid you thrice welcome. [Applause.] 

Rev. Mr. Gordon : The next thing will be a song from 
the choir, and I hope these people will let the audience see 
that old Cambridge people have both hearts and lungs. 

The choir then sang 

HOME AGAIN. 
Horns again, home again, from a foreign shore ! 

And oh ! it fills my soul with joy 
To meet my friends onee more ! 
Here I dropped the parting tear. 

To cross the ocean's foam, 
But now I'm once again with those 

Who kindly greet me home. 

Happy hearts, happy hearts,, with mine have laughed in glee, 

But oh ! the friends I loved in youth, 
Seem happier to me. 



1 6 CENTENNIAL ANNIYERSARY 

And if my guide should be the fate, 

Which bid me longer roam, 
But death alone can break the tie 

That binds my heart to home. 

Music sweet, music soft, lingers round the place, 

And oh ! I feel the childhood charm, 
That time cannot efface. 
Then give me but my homestead roof, 

I'll ask no palace dome, 
For I can live a happy life 

With those I love at home. 

Rev. Mr. Gordon : The next thin"; in order, and to 
which I hope you will give the utmost attention, is an histor- 
ical address of the old town by the Hon. G. W. Jermain. 

HISTORICAL ADDRESS BY HON. G. W. JERMAIN. 

Such a gathering of people as we see here to-day would 
hardly be expected, even at a celebration which excites so 
much interest as the anniversary of our National Indepen- 
dence. This is indeed the centennial year of one of the most 
prominent events which led to that Independence, the great 
tea party of 1773 when the tea was cast overboard in Boston 
harbor. Hut the event which we celebrate to-day is quite 
another though of coincident date with that. As children 
love to do honor to the memory of their ancestors, we are 
here to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth-da} 
of our old mother Cambridge. If it were so that living wit- 
nesses remained to tell us of their own knowledge the earliest 
history of the town, nothing could give greater interest to 
this meeting than to call them up to tell us who was the first 
white inhabitant who came and fixed his home in this then 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. I J 

wilderness, and which the spot upon which he fixed it ; who 
came next, and next ! How did thev work their way through 
the unbroken forest, and how their means to work, and their 
means of living were brought to their new homes and the 
hardships and privations they endured. Thus we could follow 
on from farm to form, as we now know them, and learn who 
who their first occupants, and through but few generations could 
trace the history of many families now with us from the be- 
ginning to the present day. There are some families, and 
not a few, now living upon the same land which their fore- 
fathers cleared, and which has come down to them through 
an unbroken line of honest ancestry, ''native here," in truth 
lords of the soil from the felling of the first tree. Of the first 
inhabitants themselves the tombstones in the grave-yards 
furnish the most authentic records of those who are thus 
memorized, but of these, and no doubt of many others, of 
whom we have no memorial here, more will be known and 
read from their "record which is on high." Of living wit- 
nesses now left to testify from personal knowledge of anything 
beyond the last half century, there are very few, yet some of 
us remain, who stand between the past and present to speak 
from memory of somewhat beyond that period, and of per- 
sonal knowledge of some who first occupied this ground a 
century ago when yet a wilderness. 

It will be seen that our object is not a popular address, but 
a matter of fact history. In the division of New York (when a 
British Province,) into counties, in 1683. Albany county 
was established, and extended north to Canada, and included 
Vermont, then claimed to be within the jurisdiction of New 
York, and several counties west of this. At a very early day 



l8 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

grants and patents of wild lands were sought by speculators 
from the British government, and in 16SS a patent was 
obtained for a tract along the Hoosic river, called the Hoosic 
Patent, a portion of which became included in the town of 
Cambridge. Soon afterward another patent, adjacent to it on 
the east, was procured, extending northerly and easterly about 
a mile in width, called the Van Corler and Lakes Patent. 

In 1 73 1 a purchase was made of the Indians of lands con- 
tiguous to and east of the Van Corler Patent, but as tb Lo. the 
poor Indian, was not supposed to have any rights which the 
white man was bound to respect," a patent for this same land 
was afterwards, in 1739, procured from the British govern- 
ment by Stephen Van Rensselaer and others, called the 
'•Walloomsac Patent" of about 12,000 acres, extending north 
and east, along the Walloomsac river and to the Green 
Mountains, covering the White Creek valley. In 1761 the 
Cambridge Patent was granted to Isaac Sawyer, Edmund 
Wells, Jacob Lansing, Alexander Colden. William Smith, 
Goldsboro Banver and others for 31.500 acres north of the 
Hoosic Patent, and extending along the Cambridge valley 
and over the west part of the present town. To induce set- 
tlements on this land the patentees gave one hundred acres to 
each of the first thirty families who would become actual 
settlers. The names which are now known of the first set- 
tlers, are John McClung, James and Robert Cowan. Samuel 
Bell, Col. Blair, George Gilmore, George Duncan. David 
Harrow. William Clark. John Scott and Thomas Morrison, 
(whose son was the first-born child among the settlers). 
These came on the lands in 1 761-2-3. Other early settlers 
in the vicinity were Ephraim Cowan, Robert Gilmore. Austin 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 19 

Wells. Samuel Clark. Jonathan Morrison. Edmond Wells, 
John Allen, David Spraugc, Seth Chase, John Woods, John 
Harroun, Thomas McCool, Thomas Ashton. Simeon Fowler. 
John Young, Josiah Dewey, Ruel Beebe, William Eager, 
William Selfridge John Younglove and John Corey. 

Edmond Wells, often mentioned among the early settlers, 
was one of the patentees, and probably the only patentee 
who became a settler, and this name and family have been 
identified w T ith the history of the town, and have continued 
in successive generations to be known and respected here to 
the present day. We have no doubt that settlements were 
made upon the other patents south and east of Cambridge 
Patent earlier than 1761. A mill was built on the Hoosic or 
Walloomsac river very early. And there is some history of 
several acres of cleared land found by the early settlers, near 
Buskirk's Bridge, supposed by some to have been an Indian 
corn field, but more probably the site of an old fort, which is 
known to have been built in the Hoosic river valley (long 
before the Cambridge settlement,) for protection, against the 
Indians, and which was attacked by a party of French and 
Indians who came from Canada through the Cambridge 
valley and captured this fort and killed and took captive some 
of the inhabitants, and on their return encamped several days 
near the Ponds north of Cambridge village. 

The names of other early settlers are given in the record 
of those who were disturbed in possession of their lands by 
reason of the Revolution, and which for a time were exempted 
from quit rents on that account. These were James McKie, 
Elizabeth Watson. Michael McCabe. John Nicholson. Daniel 
Busteed. William Busteed. James McKimm. Francis Xichol- 



20 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

son, William Nicholson, on the Embury Patent. James 
Cowden, Ephraim Bessey, Benjamin Smith. John Morrison. 
William Cooper. Isaac Gibbs. James S. Cowden. Samuel 
Cowden, David Cowden, George Searl, William Bleck, 
Archibald Campbell, John Campbell, William Campbell, 
George Telford, Winslow Heath, Timothy Heath, William 
King, Amos Buck, James Warner. Eben Warner, John Aus- 
tin, on the Cambridge Patent, and Francis Lacker on the 
Van Corler Patent. Some who had taken up lots previous 
to the Revolution left them during that period ; some from 
fear of disturbance by Tories and Indians, who were prowl- 
ing about the country for plunder, and some, who chose to 
desert their friends and join their enemies, left this region 
altogether. The lands of some of these were confiscated by 
government after the war and sold to other settlers. 

The first settlements on the Cambridge Patent were chiefly 
along the Taghkanick range of hills on the east bender, and 
along the Owl Kill and Cambridge valley. The first tavern 
was a log house kept by James Cowden. where the Chequered 
House is, which we have often heard called by the old set- 
tlers, the Cowden Tavern. In 1762 the Annaquassacoke 
Patent for 10,000 acres was granted to Schermerhorn and 
others, extending over parts of the present White Creek and 
Jackson. The early settlers on this were James Irvine. Peter 
McGill, John Miller, John McLean, Jonathan Conger, Hugh 
Thompson, Eben Billings. This tract is north of Cambridge 

Patent. 

In 1765 the Emburj Patent for 8,000 acres east of Anna- 
quassacoke was granted. This and Wilson's Patent, so 
called, are evidently the same, as two Mich patents can not 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 2 1 

be found, and this patent was granted to Embury, Wilson 
and others. 

In 1766 a tract of about 1,400 acres was purchased by 
Phineas Whiteside, in the west part of Cambridge, upon 
which his sons, John, Peter. Thomas, William, James and 
Oliver, each had farms, and the names and possession of this 
family have continued there to the present time. Phineas 
Whiteside did great service to the country during the war of 
the Revolution. Other patents obtained are known as the 
Grant and Campbell Patents, lying south of Embury Patent, 
in White Creek, and Bain's Patent, contiguous to that, and 
Reed and Van Antwerp's, granted in 1770, said to be north 
of the Hoosic and west of Cambridge Patent. 

Some very early improvements were made with reference 
to the supplies needed by the settlers. A mill was built on the 
Walloomsac river, and a mill at Pumpkin Hook, (this name 
is said to have been originally Pompanuck, an Indian name 
derived from the name of a remnant of an Indian tribe once lo- 
cated there for a time). Cambridge was not a town nor a 
district until the Colonial Assembly, in 1772. passed an act con- 
stituting it a district,, and including Shaftsbury in it. (Dis- 
tricts were by the Colonial law the same as towns). By act 
of Assembly the same year, 1772. a portion of Albany county 
was setoff and called Charlotte county, in honor of Queen 
Charlotte. This county included most of our present county, 
and part of Vermont, but did not include Cambridge, which 
still remained in Albany county. Previous to 1777 a consid- 
erable number of settlers had come in and occupied different 
sections of the town, and lands contiguous along the Hoosic 
river, and made improvements, and acquired stocks of horses 



2 2 CEXTEXXIAI. AXXTVERSARY 

and cattle. The war of the Revolution was then in progress, 
and the British army, under Burgoyne, was advancing from the 
north, and when as far along as the North river, west of us. 
a detachment under Colonel Baum was sent out for supplies, 
and passing through Cambridge, encamped over night, August 
13, 1777. near Wait's Corners. An advance party of Tories 
and Indians had preceded them, and near Hoosic or Wal- 
loomsac. attacked and took prisoners a number of our people 
and took from them cattle and other supplies. Baum. 
with his red coats, (as the British soldiers were called on 
account of their uniform.) proceeded next day toward Ben- 
nington, and on the 16th, near the junction of the lines of 
Cambridge, Hoosic and Bennington, encountered General 
Stark in what is called the Bennington battle. Stark on that 
occasion made his famous speech to his men, which has be- 
come proverbial as significant of determined courage, "the 
red coats are ours before night or Molly Stark is a widow." 
Baum met signal defeat, and himself and about seven hun- 
dred of his men were taken prisoners and about two hundred 
killed. This incursion of British soldiers in the town caused 
much alarm, and the inhabitants (from some of whom we 
have heard relations) apprehending depredations from 
marauding parties of Tories and Indians, secreted their prop- 
ertv in various wavs to protect it, and in some instances 
employing the agency 6f neighbors who were friends of the 
British. A story is told of one of the old settlers near Ben- 
nington battle ground, who not willing to lose his dav's work, 
kept his men in his field while the battle went on. until the 
cannon balls whistled among them, and then told them he 
thought they wouldn't work any longer that day. 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 33 

Soon after the close of the Revolution the settlement of the 
town rapidly increased. Its contiguity to Albany and other 
older settlements, and much improvement of the county south 
of it, induced emigration from other States and from the old 
countries, and the town was very soon populated. In 1784 
the Legislature of the State of New York changed the name 
of the county of Charlotte, and highly honored it with the 
name of Washington. Cambridge never belonged to Char- 
lotte county, but continued in Albany county as a district 
until 1788, when it was made a town, "bounded on the north 
by the county of Washington," and extending some distance 
south of the Hoosic river, including Tioshoke. below Bus- 
kirk's Bridge. In 1791 Rensselaer county was instituted, 
and Cambridge was annexed to Washington County at the 
same time, and in 1822 all that part of the town south of 
the Hoosic river was set off to Rensselaer county. 

The eastern bounds of the town, or county, or even of the 
State, were for many years indefinite, and until Vermont 
became a State a contest had for many years existed between 
New Hampshire and New York, both claiming jurisdiction 
over the territory between the Connecticut river and Lake 
Champlain, and the precise eastern boundary of this town 
and county, during this controversy, was dependent upon the 
settlement of it. The British government decided in favor 
of New York, but the Green Mountain boys having been 
very active and efficient in the war of independence, and in- 
flated with its spirit, in 1777, declared themselves independent 
of both States, but they soon ascertained that they had, by 
this act, involved themselves in another war of Independence. 
Connected with this are some facts which are part of the his- 



24 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

ton of Cambridge. The indefinite state of the boundary, 
and in fact the jurisdiction of this town, having extended over 
territory claimed by Vermont, a sympathy was induced to- 
ward the Yermonters in their claim to independence, and in 
this several other districts along and near the borders were 
united. Vermont, beside denying the right of New York to 
any jurisdiction beyond her present boundaries, also denied 
her right to the territory, now Washington county, upon the 
pretence that this territory was no part of New York, but 
belonged to a separate Territorial government established by 
Great Britain, over which Gov. Philip Skeene was appointed 
Governor, and the assumed General Assembly of Vermont, 
in February, 1781, declared its jurisdiction to extend to the 
Hudson river, and in April following appointed a conven- 
tion to be held at Cambridge in the next month, to which 
delegates were chosen to represent Vermont; This conven- 
tion was held in May. i/Si.in which were represented by 
delegates the following districts, (as then called): Hoosic, 
Schaghticoke. Cambridge, Saratoga. Upper White Creek 
(Salem,) Black Creek (Hebron.) Granville. Skeensboro. 
Kingsbury. Fort Edward and little Hoosic. and at which 
these districts resolved to submit themselves to the jurisdic- 
tion of Vermont. John Rogers waschairman of Convention. 
and Moses Robinson chairman of Committee. Representa- 
tives were chosen to the Vermont Legislature, in which, on 
June 16, 1781. Phineas Whiteside and Joseph Caldwell took 
seats as members from Cambridge. Congress did not readily 
accede to the proposition, but Vermont persisted and resisted 
the authority of New York, and this led to open hostilities, 
and the resistant^ were adjudged to be outlaws, and in 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 2j 

rebellion, and a large number were arrested, but we do not 
identity any names of these in the documentary history as 
Cambridge people. This state of things led to a " sober 
second thought, and to the wise conclusion that discretion is 
the better part of valor."' March i. 1782, a convention was 
held at Cambridge to reconsider the action of the convention 
of the previous year, and a petition was adopted and for- 
warded to the Governor and Legislature of New York, 
retracting the union with Vermont, in which they regret that 
step, and say in their petition, " Our deception was great, and 
our return is hearty, and as acts of lenity and mercy dignify 
the human nature more than strict justice, we doubt not but 
that you, in your clemency and goodness, will restore us to 
our former situation, that thereby we may be rendered more 
serviceable to the United States of America, and the State of 
New York in particular." This petition is signed, "Jona- 
than Waldo, Josiah Dewey, Fortunatus Sherman, Committee 
of District Convention." Another document appears addressed 
to the Governor and Legislature of March 5, 17S2, signed by 
Edward Savage, John Gray. P. Fitch, and many others 
(supposed from their names to be inhabitants of Salem, but 
not dated at any place,) petitioning for the pardon of White 
Creek people for having submitted themselves to the assumed 
jurisdiction of Vermont. It seems probable, from this docu- 
ment, that the " Upper White Creek," named in the Seces- 
sion Convention proceedings of May, 17S1. was in fact our 
neighbor Salem which took part in that convention, and that 
this petition was on behalf of the inhabitants of that town, 
and not our White Creek. In the first settlement of Salem 
(before it became a town,) the New England settlers there 



2,6 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

called it White Creek, (though the Scotch settlers preferred 
the name of New Perth). This controversy continued seve- 
ral years after this, Congress not consenting to admit Vermont. 
But afterwards, in 1791, Vermont was admitted as a Sovereign 
State in the Union, with her present boundaries. 

We have already adverted to the law which first gave 
name and organization to Cambridge, and we now call to our 
aid to furnish facts relative to its history, an old witness of 
one hundred years — the original Book of Records, com- 
mencing with the first town meeting in May. 1773. which 
proves the present year of 1873 to be the centennial year of 
its legal organization, and gives its official history down to 
the time of the division of the town. The appearance of this 
old witness, clad in parchment, the dress of former times, 
proves its own age, and the well known hand-writing of 
many of its records is to some of us full proof. As some ten 
years or more had elapsed since the first settlements, before 
these records commenced, it will be seen from the names at 
first appearing on the records, and for succeeding years, that 
many whom we have supposed to, have been first settlers, did 
not probably come in until years afterwards. We read from 
the old book. " At the town meeting held at Cambridge, in 
ye county of Albany, in the Province of Xew York, first 

Tuesday of May. 1773. Moderator. Morrison. Esq. : 

Supervisor, Simeon Covcll : Town Clerk, William Brown ; 
Assessors, David Sprague, White Creek ; Michael Ryan. 
Cambridge; Treasurer. Isaiah Younglove ; Overseers of 
Roads. Samuel Ileth, John Morrison. Edward Wells, Robert 
Edminston, Nathan Smith, for Corler's patent : John Soule, 
Samuel Hedges, for White Creek : Hazard Wilcox. Andrew 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. *7 

Thorns, for Walloomsac ; Thomas Ashton, for Quashecook ; 
Simeon Berry, for Ash Grove ; Jabez Mosher, for Fowler's ; 
Overseers of Poor, John Lake, of White Creek, Robert Gil- 
more, of Cambridge ; Collector and Constable, George Gil- 
more, Cambridge ; Constables, Eben Allen, White Creek, 
Peter Halley, Allertown, (probably meant for Peter Hawley 
of Arlington,) John Corey, Shaftsbury ; Fence Viewers and 
Prizers, Seth Chase and David Sprague, White Creek, Sam- 
uel Heth and Hugh Gray, Cambridge ; Firemen, John Weir, 
James Morrison, Hazard Wilcox, Jabez Mosher, Isaiah 
Younglove, Eben Wright ; Pound Masters, James Cowden, 
Samuel Hodges." The White Creek portion of the town 
seem to have soon manifested a disposition for independence, 
as appears from the following record, (and besides their dis- 
position for secession, seem to have been in favor of southern 
institutions). We read : " At a special meeting of the in- 
habitants of White Creek, February i, 1775, voted to petition 
the Assembly to be set off from Cambridge," and further. 
" Voted to petition the Assembly to let the inhabitants keep 
bloodhounds." It is an evidence of the rapid improvement 
of the town that the number of road districts increased in the 
first ten years from thirteen to twenty-eight, and in the same 
time following to forty-eight, and soon after over one hun- 
dred. The names of the first magistrates which appear upon 
the record are, Edmond Wells, John Younglove, David 
Sprague and John McKillip. We read further a few extracts 
from this old record : "May 11,1776, at a town meeting 
called for the purpose of electing Field Officers of the 
Eighteenth Regiment of Militia, Lucas Van Wort was elec- 
ted Colonel, John Blair Second Colonel, James Ashton, Ma- 



28 ( KXTEXXIAL ANNIVERSARY 

jor, and John Younglove Adjutant. May S, 1783, voted that 
stocks be built at expense of district, (as in Old Testament 
times when Job said,. ' thou puttest my feet in the stocks.' 
and in New Testament times. • the feet of Paul and Silas 
they made fast in the stocks.' ") April 8, 1801, * ( I, Jeremiah 
Stihvell, do hereby manumit my slaves, named Salem Bedoe 
and Arabella his wife," (the dark ages had not then passed, 
even in New York State). Slavery being then allowed in 
this State, provision was made by law that the slaves might 
be manumitted by writing, executed by their owners and re- 
corded in the town records, which secured their freedom and 
exonerated the owners from liability for their support. We 
rind many such records. 

The early establishing of churches in the town shows the 
Puritan character of the early settlers. The first church or- 
ganization in the town was no doubt the Methodist church 
at Ash Grove. Philip Embury (the removal of whose re- 
mains, and the erection of a monument to whose memory, 
have excited much interest.) came into this region, and find- 
ing here a number of settlers desirous of religious privileges, 
who had emigrated from the old country, he, with Thomas 
Ashton, and a few others, organized a church in 1770 at Ash 
Grove, said to have been named after Mr. Ashton, and a small 
meeting house was some time alter erected at that place, and 
late in iS^2 a new and more commodious house was built, 
which was afterwards burned. This church is said to have 
been the second Methodist church organized in America, (the 
first being the John street church in New York, which Mr. 
Embury had just before assisted in organizing). From this 
time forward has this denomination been justly considered 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 



2 9 



the pioneer in the establishing of churches in new settle- 
ments, following the example of this good man. 

The old meeting house, so called, which stood upon the 
lot contiguous to the old burying ground, south of the village, 
was commenced about 1775, and perhaps earlier, for it is 
known that as early as 1765 the settlers sent to Scotland for 
ministerial supply, and Rev. Mr. Telfair came in 1766 to this 
place and preached, and ministers from Salem also preached 
here, but the meeting house was not completed until 17S3. 
This lot was donated by William Smith, one of the Cambridge 
patentees, for church purposes, and conveyed to John Young- 
love, Edmond Wells, Phineas Whiteside, James Ashton, John 
Morrison, James McClung, John Welch, Josiah Dewey and 
Josiah Wells, as Trustees, and the building was erected and 
occupied at first by those desiring religious worship without 
denominational distinction — most of whom were from the 
old countries. It appears in the history of this congregation 
that the anxiety to procure such a minister as was desirable 
to a portion of them, induced a Mrs. Hinsdale to undertake a 
journey on foot to Philadelphia for that purpose, and the Rev. 
Thomas Beverage was procured, and came and organized a 
church here. A difference among them in regard to prefer- 
ences to the different church relations from which thev origi- 
nated in the old countries, soon afterwards induced a division 
into two separate congregations, and the church here organ- 
ized in 1785, under the ministry of Mr. Beverage, procured 
another location and built the yellow meeting house, so 
called. The congregation which remained in the old meet- 
ing house organized according to law, January 7, 1785. by 
the name of " The First Protestant Presbyterian Congregation 



30 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

of Cambridge," and at some time not now ascertained, organ- 
ized a church by the name of u The Associate Reformed 
Church of Cambridge," and in 1791 settled Rev. John Dun- 
lap as their minister, with Phineas Whiteside, James Ashton, 
James Stevenson, Fortunatus Shearman, Archibald Robertson 
and Joseph Wells. Elders. The ministers succeeding, previ- 
ous to the present, were Revs. Messrs. D. McLaren. W. 
Howden, P. Gordon and T. McLawry. The old building 
becoming dilapidated, in 1845, was abandoned and the new 
brick church was built by the same congregation in the vil- 
lage, and has since been enlarged. The Whiteside family. 
for convenience of their neighborhood, several miles distant in 
the western part of the town, erected a meeting house in about 
1800, in their vicinity for occasional meetings, continuing 
their connection, however, with the old church (as we are 
informed by one of the family,) for many years, and not until 
1834 maintaining a separate church, when Rev. Peter Gor- 
don became their minister. 

The Friends' meeting house at White Creek had an earlv 
existence, and previous to 1783 their house was partly built 
for some years, but not finished until about 17S4, and in 1804 
was renovated or rebuilt. Among the early members we 
find the names of Wood, Bowen. Hoag, Allen. Mosher, 
Duel, Norton, and later are Barker, Hart, Chase. Taber and 
Cornell. The society was called "The White Creek Pre- 
parative Meeting." 

The yellow meeting house church, as before stated, was 
organized in 1785 by the name of "The Associate Presbyte- 
rian Church." and its first Elders were Alexander Skellie. 
James Edie. James Hollo. James Small and William McAuley. 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 3 1 

Their first church was built in 1786. Their first minister, 
Rev. Thomas Beverage, was succeeded by Revs. John Banks, 
D. D., Alexander Bullions, D. D., and his son, David G. 
Bullions, previous to the present minister. The old meeting 
house was taken down and the present brick one was erected 
in 1S33. The Rev. Alexander Bullions was pastor about 
fiftv years. We trust it will not be deemed undue partiality 
to say particularly of this good man so long with us, that he 
was a true christian gentleman, an eminently able and faith- 
ful minister. His superior learning and ability, ever devoted 
to doing good in the church, in the families and in the 
.schools, in which he took much interest, had an influence of 
which the sweet savor will not be lost for many generations, 
after him. 

The White Meeting House church was organized in 1793, 
and the church was built about that time, which was occu- 
pied about forty years. A new edifice was erected in its 
place in 1832, which was occupied until the present new 
church, on the opposite side of the street, was completed, in 
1872. The first minister. Rev. Gershone Williams, was 
succeeded by Revs. Messrs. R. H. Chapman, N. S. Prime, G. 
Hays, W. Lusk. O. P. Hoyt, E. H. Newton, I. O. Fillmore, J. 
H. Nixon, and C. H. Taylor, previous to the present pastor. 
The first Elders were John Welch, Moses Holmes, Joseph 
Wells, John Rollo. Lucas Younglove, Kirtland Warner. 

The Baptist church at Wait's Corners was organized about 
1779. According to our best information their first house of 
worship was a log house, built about 17S2, some distance 
east of the present location, and a new church was com- 
menced at Wait's Corners in 17S8. but not completed until 



,}2 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

1808. The first minister was Elder William Wait, succeeded 
by Elders Craw, Glass, Warren and Tinkham. 

The White Creek village meeting house is said to have 
been erected about 179501" 1796. but not completed until 
1S07, and occupied in part by the Wait's Corners society, 
but it does not appear that this church lias ever been used 
exclusively by any particular denomination, but chiefly by 
Baptist and Methodist societies. 

In 1798 the County Clerk's office was located in Cambridge, 
and kept by Gerritt Wendell, (who was County Clerk,) in 
his brick office at the Academy corners, and it was continued 
there for several years, until the location was changed to 
Argyle. This office continued to be occupied by Mr. Wen- 
dell for his professional business during his lifetime, and since 
his death has been taken down. 

The Northern Turnpike Company was incorporated in 
1799. with William Hay, Edmond Wells, jr.. David Long. 
Martin Van Buskirk, John Williams, Edward Savage and 
others, directors, and the road was constructed soon after- 
wards from Lansingburgh through Cambridge, and became 
a continuous road on to Burlington. Yt. This was by far 
a more valuable improvement for a new country than was 
generally acknowledged, and though many would patronize 
the shunpike to avoid the toll, they were glad to avail them- 
selves of the better road in wet seasons. There was much 
complaint about the location of this road over Oak Hill, and 
justly, for the little distance saved was no compensation to 
the public for climbing oyer the steep grade of this hill. 

Joseph Tennery published a newspaper in the town in 
December, 1803, called the Cambridge Gazette, which had 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 33 

not sufficient patronage to sustain it but a short time. By 
reference to a copy of this paper of January, 1804, it appears 
that there was then a public library in the place called " The 
Washington Library," and J. L. Wendell was Treasurer. 
Tennery & Rockwell had a printing office about this time and 
published a history of the Irish rebellion. It appears, also, 
by records in possession of some of the Whiteside family, that 
previous to this, in 1793, there was a public library in West 
Cambridge in which inhabitants in other parts of the town 
were interested, (the names of Asahel Morris, Rev. John 
Dunlap, Paul Dennis, George Barber, and others, being 
among the proprietors,) of this Edward Whiteside was 
Treasurer. 

As our centennial history commenced before the war of 
the revolution, a second era may properly begin about the 
second half century, with the war of 181 2, the period when 
some few of us can recall to our own personal recollection 
something of men and things as we then knew them. In the 
fall of 18 14 reports having reached us that the British troops 
were on our northern frontier and advancing towards us, and 
the British vessels were in threatening position on Lake Cham- 
plain, a l * callto arms" was made, and orders given to muster the 
militia in the field. It was an exciting time, and coming so 
suddenly upon us. found us quite unprepared to meet the 
enemy at once. The old firelocks were rusty and must be 
rubbed up, and some little time was needed for raw militia 
to prepare to confront the foe ; but the marching order was 
finally given, and the advance was made, but the progress of 
the march toward the enemy was slow, and the saying was 
for a long time afterwards that the advancing forces did not 



34 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

get so far for several days but that sonic of them came home 
every night to lodge, and before they reached the borders and 
had a chance to fight. Commodore McDonough had done the 
fighting, and the British fleet had surrendered and their land 
forces retreated back to Canada. We do not vouch positively 
for the truth of the saying. If there are any present who 
were then old enough to belong to that Spartan band who 
will arise to impeach the story, we shall not insist upon it. 

The Cambridge Washington Academy was incorporated 
about 18 1 5. but>the building had been erected and occupied 
as an academical school ten or twelve years previously. In 
1S44 the old Academy gave place to the more commodious 
building as now occupied. This institution may justly have 
a prominent place in the history of the town as connected 
with its prosperity in preparing for usefulness large num- 
bers of the children of our citizens, as well as many from 
other places, and very many have gone out from it to occupy 
important positions of usefulness and honor in church and 
State, and in the business of life. It would no doubt be in- 
teresting and gratifying to many could we give the names of 
these, but should we attempt it. it would be in our power 
onlv to give a partial list, and rather than do this we will not 
attempt it. The principals during the first twenty years 
were David Chassel. Rev. Alexander Bullions, Rev. X. S. 

Prime. Rev. John Monteith, \\". I). Beattie. Cambridge 
has furnished, probably, as large a number of professional 
men as any country town in our knowledge, and main of 

these eminent. History informs us of another institution in 

the town, which, though not known for its literary character. 

was made somewhat noted in the biography of the late Gov- 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 35 

ernor Briggs of Massachusetts, who, though not from our 
Academy, was in his youth a resident of the town, and em- 
ployed at a trade, and who afterwards became distinguished 
i n the councils of the nation as well as in his State. Some 
time while in Congress, in conversation with several gentle- 
men about the colleges from which they had graduated, he 
was asked from what college he graduated, and he replied, 
"From John Allen's hat shop, in White Creek," and the 
building thus dignified is honored by a print of excellent like- 
ness in his published biography. 

Long before the close of the first half century, scarcely a 
trace was left of anything which characterizes a new country, 
except that in very many fields the stumps of the original 
forest trees stood as monuments of a former wilderness, until 
the stump machine of Solomon Warner extracted them. 
This machine, when first invented x and as used for a long 
time, was of much curiosity as well as utility, and when seen 
passing from place to place was sometimes called the Jugger- 
naut. It consisted of two immense wheels, with a heavy axle, 
upon which was a small wheel intermediate, and fixed to the 
axle to operate as a lever, a chain was fastened to this lever, and 
oxen hitched to the other end. The axle being placed over 
a stump, and a heavy chain attached to both, the draught of 
the oxen wound this chain about the axle and drew the stump 
from the ground ; and the stump fences now around these 
fields are the result of this operation. We do not know that 
a log house inhabited could be found, and but the remnants 
of a few only were pointed out as relics of the past. The 
well improved farms, the good roads, the schoolhouses, the 
churches, and all the ordinary departments of business in 



2,6 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

successful operation, denoted a flourishing town'. The turn- 
pike road was of important advantage, giving facilities for 
travel and transportation, and opening a great thoroughfare 
for the country north, to and from the market towns. The 
four-horse stage coaches were passing daily through the town 
along the turnpike, and soon afterwards east and west from 
Vermont and Saratoga, and daily mails were had from both 
directions. 

The magistrates of the town of the period of fifty and sixty 
years ago were Paul Cornell, Eben Dwinnell, Joseph Stewart, 
Austin Wells, James Irvine, Ira Parmalee, David Campbell, 
James Hill, William McLean. John Younglove was early a 
countv judge. Doctor Jonathan Dorr, senior, an associate 
county judge, as also John McLean. Simon Stevens, Dr. 
William Richards and Benjamin F. Skinner, afterwards. 

The lawyers w r ere Gerrit Wendell, who was an inhabitant 
as early as i/95 ? and commonly known as "the old lawyer," 
John L. Wendell, who became first judge of the county. John 
P. Putnam, and previous to this John Lee. Afterwards, and 
previous to the present lawyers, were G. W. Jermain and 
Luther J. Howe, both of whom were associate judges. 

The physicians of this period were Doctors Sanford Smith 
and Philip Smith, Richards. Dorr. Post. Morris. Dean. Gil- 
lette, Agur, Barnum, Stevenson. 

The merchants were Merritts (afterwards Barrett) at the 
white store. White Creek. Stillwell (afterwards Rice & Bil- 
lings) at Dorr's Corners. Dennis, who was also postmaster, 
near the White Meeting House-. Stevenson (afterwards McNeil 
.V McNaughton) near the yellow meetinghouse. Carpenter 
(afterwards Allen) at Buskirk's I nidge. 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 37 



The principal hotels were Wilkinson's, at White Creek, 
Beebe and Major Porter's, near White Meeting House, 
Peters', at turnpike crossing, Edward Long's Chequered 
House, and Buskirk's at the Bridge, and Day on Oak Hill, 
and Loomis and Orcutt and Collins on the turnpike. 

By act of the Legislature of 1815, the town was divided 
into the present towns— Cambridge, White Creek and Jack- 
son. The first town officers were, of Cambridge : James 
Stevenson, Supervisor ; Sidney W T ells, Clerk ; Julius Phelps, 
Jesse Pratt, James P. Robertson, Josiah Dunton, Justices. 
Of White Creek : William Richards, Supervisor ; Ira Par- 
merlee, Clerk; Paul Cornell, John P. Putnam, Benjamin 
Crocker, H. S. Barnum, Justices. Of Jackson : James Irvine, 
Supervisor; Kirtland Warner, Clerk; Anderson Simpson, 
George W. Robertson, Ira C. Stevens, Justices. 

The division of the town was an occasion of excitement 
among the inhabitants : a removal of old landmarks, the old 
center, and what seemed with reference to the face of the 
country and the direction of the roads to be the natural one, 
and which had become established as the main center of 
business, was thrown on the outskirts of the towns, and new 
centers were found to be difficult to be satisfactorily estab- 
lished, and which, in one of the towns, it would seem, has 
not yet been accomplished. Some bad feeling was engendered 
which, among the older inhabitants and participators in the 
matter for and against the measure, continued a long time. 
But bygones are bygones now. 

Time has proved, however, that the change in town lines 
docs not necessarily change business localities, or establish 
new ones, and in this case the change has not interrupted the 



38 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

growth of the original places of business. Before the division 
of the town, and not until some years afterwards, was there 
any considerable village, but the business places were in 
comparatively small neighborhoods. The last half century 
has. however, wrought great changes ; perhaps none greater 
than the railroad, completed in 1S52. which has taken the 
place, in most respects, of the old turnpike road, and the 
locomotives and trains of cars the place of the old stage 
coaches and the loa'ded wagons. 

Xot long previous to the building of the railroad the Blair 
farm occupied most of the ground between the White Meet- 
ing House square and the brook west of it. and the site of the 
present depot and all around it was a large open held known 
as the parade ground, and the land north and south of it 
through the valley was cultivated fields. The general militia 
trainings were had for many years upon this ground, and 
great displays were made of epaulets and evolutions, and as 
old soldiers love in story to " right their battles o'er again." 
we may be allowed to recur to one of these occasions which 
the mention of the parade ground calls to mind, though some- 
what personal. The One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment 
was commanded by Colonel John L. Wendell, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Clark Rice, jr.. and Major Elisha Billings. A dif- 
ference arose on the parade between the Colonel and Brigade 
Inspector. Major William McFarland. 5th. (familiarly called 
the • majors live. ') and the Colonel arrested the Inspector. 
who procured the arrest of the Colonel and also of the Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel and one Captain and the Adjutant, who acted 
under the Colonel's orders in disobedience of the Inspector. 
The two held officers were tried by division court-martial 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 39 

and acquitted, and the Captain and Adjutant by brigade 
court-martial and convicted, but they were honorably acquit- 
ted on appeal to Governor Yates, the Commander-in-chief. 

We are inclined to pause here and inquire how many of 
all the number we have named as belonging to our history 
of the first fifty years are now living. We have named about 
two hundred and thirty, and of these only about half a dozen 
remain, and most or all of them are here present, and of 
others, our cotemporaries, very few. 

Now we advert to the changes for a moment. The old 
central neighborhood and most of the adjacent ones have 
come together, and we see the old parade ground and the 
land around it traversed by railroad tracks, and streets lined 
with places of business, and public buildings and handsome 
dwellings, and all compacted into a corporate village with the 
good old name of Cambridge. The division of the town re- 
quired and for a while caused a change of names, but the return 
to the old name of place and post-office was heartily welcomed. 
The convenience of a portion of the central population has 
induced the name of Coila to their location and their post- 
office, but they and the Cambridge villagers are essentially 
one. Those who have been away for many years notice the 
many and great improvements in the place, and none more 
prominent than the new and beautiful Woodlands Cemetery, 
which gives credit and honor to the place. This cemetery 
will itself (long after its proprietors shall have found in it 
their own last resting place,) be a fit monument to their 
memory. This association was organized November 10, 
1S57 5 J orm M. Stevenson, President ; D. M. Westfall, Secre- 
tary ; B. P. Crocker, Treasurer. Mr. Stevenson, who was 



4-0 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

the efficient President thirteen years, and devoted much time 
and energy to the work, and Richard Barton and Rev. J. G. 
Smart and Lewis Nicholson, who did much to establish the 
cemetery, already repose in their last sleep in these beautiful 
grounds. 

The Cambridge Valley Bank, now several years in success- 
ful operation, is an evidence of the business enterprise of the 
place and people. The permanent establishment of the ably 
conducted Washington County Post is an important in- 
stitution. The Greenwich and Johnsonville railroad through 
the town of Cambridge is furnishing great facilities and con- 
veniences to the section of the town through which it passes. 

Having given some account of the early religious institu- 
tions of the town, it may be proper to mention the churches 
which have been established in latter days, showing that such 
institutions have kept pace with the advance in population 
and other improvements. Besides the rebuilding and im- 
provement of the older churches, which we have noted, we find 
now other new and commodious places of public worship, to 
wit, in Cambridge village: The Methodist Episcopal church, 
built about 1834; the Baptist church was organized in 1S43, 
Rev. Levi Parmalee the first minister — the church was built 
in 1S44; the Catholic church was built about 1S50; the 
Episcopal church built about 1S67 ; a Methodist church in 
the southeast part of present Cambridge, built 1S23 : a Meth- 
odist church in North Cambridge, built 1S3S ; a Reformed 
Dutch church at Battenville. organized 1833. It is worthy 
of note what changes have been made in the arrangement 
and construction of churches since the building of the old 
churches fifty years or more ago. Formerly the minister 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 4 1 

stood in what was termed a tub pulpit, placed high up against 
the wall, just large enough for one man to stand in, and a 
canopy (called a sounding board) hung above his head to 
prevent the sound of his voice being wasted over him ; the 
pews were square pens with seats on three sides, one seat in 
most of them was back to the minister, (the fourth side faced 
the aisle,) and for many years there were no stoves or other 
means of warmth in the winter season, and we were obliged 
to sit in church with overcoats and shawls, as we would be 
clothed in the out-door cold and storms. 

We cannot refer to anything connected with the history of 
the War of the Rebellion which distinguishes the old town 
of Cambridge, particularly from others around it, but we will 
not omit to say, that in remembrance of the deeds of the 
fathers who in the days of the Revolution secured so good a 
land to be free and independent for their children, and estab- 
lished a government inferior to no other, the young men of 
this town nobly responded to the call of their country to war 
against treason and defend the integrity of their nation. 

Seeing such wonderful discoveries and improvements every 
day around us, may we not suppose that another hundred 
years will show far greater changes here than the past has 
done. These hills may yet disclose valuable mineral ores. 
We have seen, years ago, the indications of mines of lead, 
which are again attracting some attention, as well as more 
promising signs of iron ore. 

We have not intended to give a history of the town down 
to the present time, nor to state facts particularly with which 
the present generation are conversant, but it has been our 
purpose on this occasion (when the public attention is called 



42 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

to the fact that now a century has passed since this town had 
its beginning and sprang up from a wilderness,) to gather up 
something of its early history of which the present generation 
have but little knowledge, and we fear that by reason of our 
long absence from the town and limited means of acquiring 
the needed information, we shall be deemed to have fallen 
far short of what the occasion has demanded. With the 
history of the past quarter century some of us who have found 
new homes in other places and been seldom here, have but 
little acquaintance, and here, where once familiar with the 
place and people, we find ourselves almost strangers. 

But when we look about upon the same green hills, and 
the same streams, and here and there an old familiar dwell- 
ing:, and as we see here to-dav the familiar faces of those 
whom we used to see in former times, the recollections of 
earlier years are revived again and we feel ourselves quite at 
our old home. Here are yet many of the old landmarks left. 
The same Owl Kill and Battenkill and Hoosick, the same 
Oak Hill, and Buskirk's Bridge, and Chequered House, and 
Shaker Hollow, and Skeesit, and Black Hole, and Qiiashe- 
cook, and Pumpkin Hook. 

NOTES FOR REFERENCE. 

1. For Town, County, and Railroad, and Turnpike Corporations, see Colonial and 
State laws of the years mentioned, in State Library, Albany, N. Y. 

2. For Patents see Records of maps and tabular statements of Patents in Secretary 
of State's office, Albany, and French's Gazeteer of New York, page 49, and Book of 
Quit Rent returns, two years, in Comptroller's office, Albany, N. Y. 

3. For Vermont matters see vol. "Vermont State Papers," and Doc. Hist. N. Y., 4 
vol., index Cambridge, N. Y. ; both are in State Library, N. Y. 

4. For names of early settlers see Town Records, French Gazeteer Towns and notes, 
and Corey's Gazetter Washington County. 

5. For Churches see Church Records, Sprague's Annals of Am. Pulpit, vol. 7, (Meth- 
odist) page 1, Rev. E. H. Newton's manuscript history of Associate Cong., Cambridge. 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 43 

At the conclusion of Mr. Jermain's address the choir sang 

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 

Where are the birds that sweetly sang, 

A hundred years ago ? 
The flowers that all in beauty sprang, 
A hundred years ago ? 

The lip that smiled, 
The eyes that wild, 
In flashes shone, 
Bright eyes upon, 
Where, O where, are lips and eyes, 
The maiden's smile, the lover's sighs, 
That were so long ago ? 
That were so long ago ? 

Who peopled all the city's streets, 

A hundred years ago ? 
Who filled the church with faces meek, 
A hundred years ago ? 
The sneering tale 
Of sisters frail, 
The plot that worked 
Another's hurt ? 
Where, O where, are the plots and sneers, 
The poor man's hopes, the rich man's fears 
That were so long ago ? 
That were so long ago ? 

Where are the graves where dead men slept, 

A hundred years ago ? 
Who, whilst they lived, did oft times weep, 
A hundred years ago ? 
By other men, 
They knew not then, 
Their lands are tilled, 



44 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

Their homes are filled, 
Yet nature then was just as gay. 
And bright the snn Rhone as to-day, 

A hundred years ago, 

A hundred years ago. 

Rev. Mr. Gordon : We have a little more entertainment 
on the programme. Yon will now be addressed by one of 
the sons of old Cambridge, and although his life has not been 
spent here entirely, yet he is (me of those sons of Cambridge 
that wherever his lot has been cast, or in whatever land he 
has roamed, his heart lias turned back as true as the needle 
to the pole, to the home of his childhood. 1 now introduce 
Rev. Dr. Gillette, of New York city. 

ADDRESS BY REV. A. D. GILLETTE, I). D. 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, and I think 
I may say Fellow Citizens of Cambridge : I am glad 
to be with you on this occasion, an occasion whereon we are 
gathering up the fragments that nothing may be lost, and 
my only regret is, that after all the able and earnest industry 
of the orator of the day. there is much lost that never can be 
gathered. Years ago I got the ear of Air. Crocker, (he was 
then the editor in this place.) and found in his heart a re- 
sponse to my desire that some qualified man would write the 
history of old Cambridge. He accorded assent and was with 
me in desire. But where the man to do it r Later I uttered 
the same sentiment to the present editor. (lion. Mr. Smart). 
lie. too. was with me in the wish. We talked with various 
ones. His uncle, Rev. Dr. McLaren, was mentioned, but 
it has not been done until t<>-da\ you have heard in the fruits 
of patience and toil, of cheerful industry and able utterance, 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 45 

such portions of the history of this old town as have remained 
on record, or could be found traditional. 

The programme announces that I am to deliver an oration. 
You are entitled to your own definition of the meaning of that 
word. I regret it is there, and you are at liberty to pronounce 
or not whatever you please concerning what I shall say. I 
am here a child at home, and I am a child in my feelings. 
If I were ever a man I am not to-day. I cannot be. I want 
to sit down and weep, as it were, on my mother's lap ; not 
with sorrow, and yet there is occasion for that, but there is a 
sort of holy feeling — I so regard it — that comes over me in 
reviewing the past of more than half a century, which, while 
it associates itself with disaster and disease, with deaths and 
funerals and graves, yet is not unpleasant to face. It is right 
that the generations should go and come. I looked out this 
morning from my chamber in Dr. Gray's hospitable home, 
and thought with a slight alteration of the words which 
Sheridan Knowles puts into the lips of William Tell, Swit- 
zerland's deliverer, k * Ye crags and peaks," but will say, 

'• Ye bills and vales, I'm with you once again ! 

I hold to you the hands you first beheld. 

To show they still are free. Methinks I hear 

A spirit in your echoes answer rue, 

And bid your tenant welcome to his home 

Again ! (), sacred forms, how proud you look ! 

How high you lift your heads into the ^ky ! 

Ye are things that tower?" 

And not only what my eye sees, but my mind reverts to 
what are associated with the things that are tall and the things 
that tower. The venerable men of sixty years ago. whom 



46 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

I can remember, the loving, godly women of that day, and 
the heritage of moral excellence which the}- have left to their 
children and their children's children, are taller than these 
hills, richer than these valleys, more beautiful in memory 
even (with no disrespect or disparagement.) than the beauty 
that surrounds me here. 

In 1793 Jonathan Dunham and his wife Eunice, of Pisca- 
taqua, N. J., with their son-in-law. Dr. Fidelio B. Gillette 
and his wife Tabitha and their children. Philander D. and 
Cornelius C, turned their backs upon old Piscataqua, N. J., 
and came to New York with their own wagon, putting most 
of their goods on board of a sloop, the old gentleman driving 
the horses and wagon up the Hudson, the rest of the familv 
being on the sloop, and thus they came to Troy, embarking 
northward, crossed Oak Hill, arrived at Cambridge, and 
went on north of this village. When in front of Mr. Elias 
Volentine's house something happened to the wagon and 
they paused. My mother, with her two babes, she herself 
then under seventeen years of age. went into the house and 
Mrs. Volentine proffered all the hospitality of the place, and 
said, "Why, my child, where is the mother of these babes ?" 
My mother blushingly replied. u here." ** You the mother 
of these babes ?" " Yes, madam." " Who is your husband ?'» 
"Dr. Gillette." "Who are your father and mother?" 
"•Jonathan and Eunice Dunham, in the wagon." " Well," 
said Airs. Y.. "they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and 
go back to New Jersey, for allowing so young a girl as you 
to get married and become a mother. Hut we will do what 
we can for you. Tarry here for the night with your babes." 
She did tarry, and then the familv went on to the northward. 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 47 

to the old pond, where the old gentleman had purchased 
four hundred acres of land. They turned to the left and 
climbed the hill to the log house. A family by the name of 
Adkins, and another by the name of Gilman, were in the 
company. They all huddled in and near the old log house, 
where I have caught scores of woodchucks, [laughter] killed 
them and eaten them. [Laughter]. A part of the farm is 
in the Dunham family, occupied by Henry on the hill. My 
father settled between Mrs. McLean's and my grandfather's 
— right north of the south pond. 

As the President said, I have roamed far and wide, so I 
haye, not a vagabond, thank God, but I have never seen a 
more beautiful spot than this. I am talking about things 
that are associated with my boyhood. Time went on, and 
the most important event that I will mention after that which 
I have mentioned, occurred on the 8th day of September, in 
the year 1807, when, by the will of God and the pains of my 
mother, I came into the world and haye lived from then until 
now. My mind runs north to the Batten Kill, to the " Red 
Bridge," as it was then called. The teamsters of those times 
were going north and south as early as I can remember, and 
I, playing by the roadside, or going to and from the school- 
house, (which was the next building between us and Judge 
John AlcLean's,) was asked by almost every teamster, if he 
were going north, " how far is it to the red bridge?" " Four 
miles, sir." And every boy and girl made their obeisance. 
We boys pulled off the old slouch hat, with the torn rim, 
and bowed. The girls caught their skirts and made a grace- 
ful courtesy, and if any of us failed to do that parental reproof 
or schoolmaster or mistress discipline made us smart for it. 



_|S CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

The traveler south would ask, " how far is it to the 
Chequered House?" and we would reply. On the north 
lived the Clapps, I think on the other side of Cleveland's, 
and consequently in Salem. 

One of the great sights that my boyhood eyes used to see 
was the large loads of barrels which they sent to Troy, for 
they were coopers. Next, along came Mr. Vanderlip. a 
farmer and a tailor, and he passed us every Sabbath with his 
old horse and wagon — not a modern buggy that could only 
accommodate two — but a long wagon full : he came down 
here to Cambridge to worship God, with his family gathered 
about him. Near there a Mr. Small, with an old farm 
wagon, and in it six or eight old-fashioned kitchen chairs, a 
twin one across for the ** old people," and never less than six 
or eight persons in the wagon, and thus they came to the old 
yellow meeting house. Should he find a foot worn pilgrim 
on the way to his spiritual zion, he would take him in if he 
had to hang half his body over the wagon side to and from ' 
church. [Laughter]. Next, along came the Shoulders 
turn, and then the schoolhouse, and then Mr. Dobbin's, and 
at the head of that pond Jonathan Congor. a cousin of my 
grandfather's, and hence a relative, whose daughter married 
•• Uncle" Thomas McLean, as I call him. because his wife 
was my mother's cousin, and 1 am related to all the McLeans 
bjP reason of that. Then we came down to Mr. Collins', 
who kept the tavern : and while I have called my father a 
"Doctor," (and such he was. and practiced medicine.) lie 
was a sort of " jack of all trades." and among other things 
drew with his pen and pencil. Among my earliest recollec- 
tions was his painting a sign for Mr. Collins, on which was 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 49 

an eagle with darts and arms and something in its bill, — that 
bird of liberty that soars over us to-day in all the emblems of 
freedom, thank God. [Applause], Then there was " Uncle" 
Jimmy McLean, as I told you. (for I told you they were all 
" Uncles.") on the pond nearby, and then "Uncle" Solomon 
Ackley, and a little lower down, but with more dignity be- 
cause of his commanding presence and official position. Judge 
John McLean, sr. His son John became Judge, and when 
he was a student and would come home and go fishing, he 
was well respected and wore his gloves, and did not love to 
tan his hands, and he would get me to dig the worms, bait the 
hooks and take the off the fish ! [Applause and laughter]. 
He alluded to it when we met. I went into the court room 
at Salem one day, years ago, where he was presiding. He 
begged me to come up and take a vacant chair by his side. 
I did so. He says, •' Is this Abramr" I says. •• yes." "Well," 
he says, " you are the boy who used to bait the hooks for 
me. Sit in a Judge's seat." Then came the schoolhouse — 
mightier for the good of mankind than all the seventy-four 
gun ships that ever floated — the district schoolhouse. [Ap- 
plause]. 

As I said, my father was a sort of " jack of all trades" — 
sometimes he taught the school there, or taught writing les- 
sons in various sections of the town. The doctors were 
not so busy then as now ; people were not so sickh\ 
[Laughter]. Then two older brothers of mine taught 
the school. Back of us. up on the hill, where Mr. McAllis- 
ter, I think, now resides, was ••Uncle" Daniel Holhrook. 
The McLeans were Jerseymen — five brothers — not the two 
who came in the " Mayflower." but five who started from 



50 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

Scotland and got to New Jersey, and whether that State was 
too small, or whether it was " out of the Union" then or not 
I don't know, but anyway they came up here. One settled 
in the east, one at Batten Kill, one at the head of the ponds, 
and one on the turnpike next to us. Deacon Ford on the 
hill northwest. I want to say a word to deacons. I love 
deacons. We used to meet for worship in the schoolhouse 
Sunday afternoons, and Deacon Ford, who belonged to the 
Baptist church in Shushan, seemed to be by common consent 
Superintendent of affairs there, and the regulator of the boys. 
We would get around on the little seats. There Dr. Bullions, 
Air. Prime. Elder McCulloh and others used to hold meet- 
ings. I loved to go. But Deacon Ford was the presiding 
genius. He was nearly seven feet high, and I presume he 
looked much taller to me then than he would now. A good 
man. but with such a long, grave face. So watchful of us 
boys that at one time when Dr. Prime was preaching there 
and speaking of heaven, my little mind labored to conceive 
what heaven was, and I thought it was something like the 
gathering there — two or three rows of people around the house 
singing the praises of God. and that was all very pleasant. 
but I asked, •• will Deacon Ford be up there ?" I had no 
doubt he would be. but I hoped his office would not be to 
regulate us boys. 

On the hill my uncle Nahum Dunham lived. Up further 
the Bebees. The hill raised good men and women. Down 
the turnpike was Uncle Daniel Volentine's. old Uncle Elias 
and sons and daughters, and Aunt Esther, and below was 
Mr. Heath, and so on down ; and I must not forget Deacon 
Thompson, of blessed memory, but you know the all rest. I 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 51 

used to pass their houses and come down lure to Cambridge 
from my grandfather's with a basket of eggs and get some- 
thing to carry back, but I always preferred to trade with Mr. 
McGeoch in getting my fish hooks. So much for this. Now 
for some of the clergymen of those times. 

The clergy first with me — no disrespect to others. Old Dr. 
Bullions used to come and catechise us in the school. He 
wore high swell boots with tassels. I played with the tassels 
one day and was punished for it. [Laughter.] Mr. Prime 
used to come and talk with us. We were always glad to see 
him ; of tall, noble form, perfect symmetry, I could paint 
him to-day were I an artist : bland countenance, a little dig- 
nified, if not a little stern. His son is here and will speak 
for himself by and by. I ought to say we always knew Mr. 
Prime's carriage and the white horse. We were always glad 
to see him. though my grandfather, on reading his book on 
baptism, used to say " nonsense." But those were the days 
when men spoke for themselyes as well as wrote. Mr. Prime 
seldom passed my grandfathers or father's house without a 
kind, ministerial, friendly. Christian call. Dr. Dunlap. with 
his saddle-bags, jogging along on his horse would always 
stop at my father's, re-light his pipe and take a sip of old New 
England rum. [loud laughter.] something to eat if he would 
accept of it. and then he would go on his way. A good old 
man ; we children loved him. Mr. Tombs, of Salem, used 
to do the same. The ministers in Shushan the same. I fre- 
quently came with the family down here and heard Mr. 
Prime, the first Presbyterian minister that I remember : also. 
I went to Dr. Bullions', as my elder sister married William 
I. Graham of that church. In that old yellow meetinghouse 



52 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

I have sat and was interested in hearing the people sing. 
They all had their Bibles in their churches, and I wish all 
who attend church now would have theirs. Generally, the 
psalms were in the hack part of the Bibles, and so generally 
was it their custom to sing that it was avowed that John 
Dunahue. a deaf, mute also sang. [Laughter.] He certainly 
looked on the psalm sung, and his lips moved — that I know. 
for I saw him. 

I must be brief, but therearetwo or three other things I must 
mention. In the time of the war of 1S12 my brother was the 
schoolteacher of that district, and was seventeen years of age. 
One night he dismissed the school and did not come home. 
When heard of he was among the troops on their way north. 
Whether he was one of the recreant ones Judge Jermain 
spoke of, I don't know. Colonel Clark Rice took him as a 
sort of secretary, and had him with him. Then there was 
Major Simpson and old General De Ruyter, from overweston 
the Hudson. I know queer things were said of him, whether 
true or not. Some said that he mistook the prow for the 
stern of the vessel, and went the wrong way on Lake Cham- 
plain. [Laughter and cries of " that's so."] Well, he was 
not a soldier ; he was a farmer. The battle of Plattsburgh 
was fought : we soon heard of it. I remember the morning 
when the news came, seeing my father stand before the old 
fire-place and tell the story as he learned it somewhere in his 
rides. All was excitement. The troops finally returned. 
Thev passed our door, with prisoners, on their way to Green- 
bush; thev were drawing a large cannon. My brother 
arrived: they paused to fire him a farewell salute at our door. 
1 went out and stood by a large cannon, and a soldier caught 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 53 

me up and ran my head into the muzzle. [Laughter.] An 
officer drew his sword and was about to strike him. Some- 
one interfered, and, I believe, though terribly frightened, I 
laughed, and that was the end of it. They went on to 
Orcutt's hotel, turned in and encamped there. My father 
took us down to see them. I was presented to ki Commo- 
dore" McDonough and sat on his knee, and he said he hoped 
I would be a soldier or a sailor, and a good one, and indeed. 
I then had no doubt but that I should be, but I never have, 
and I am glad of it. 

The next event was the removal of the remains of General 
Montgomery from Quebec. I remember the parade that 
passed our door, and that the bones which were said to be in 
the coffin, were taken to New York city and deposited, as 
most of you know, and have seen the monument, along the 
front of Broadway in St. Paul's church yard. 

These events were imprinted upon a boy's mind. But 
then there came other changes. One event, however, I will 
speak of in connection with physicians. I had schoolmates 
from over towards Shushan by the name of Kemmis. They 
had a grandfather. People now say, ,; You are an aristocrat 
if you had a grandfather." I have told you I had one ; these 
Kemmis boys had one. They did not till the farm very well, 
and did not dress very finely. It was to them an advantage 
in running on the ice ; they could throw off their old shoes 
and outrun any one of us. The old gentleman hurt his ankle 
by snaking out a log in the woods, and crushed it very seri- 
ously, and my father tried all he could to save it. He called 
in Dr. Dorr and Dr. Dean as counsel. It was pronounced 
incurable, and it was decided that it must be amputated. An 



54 CEVTEN'NIAL ANNIVERSARY 

old physician in Salem, whom I will not name because I 
may not tell the truth exactly, heard of the matter, and hav- 
ing a fend with Dr. Dorr, and I believe not liking my father 
very well, took two or three students and offered the patient 
fifty dollars for his leg, which offer being accepted, the Salem 
physician amputated the limb and returned home. My 
father and Dr. Dorr assembled the next day. 1 think, to per- 
form the important operation, but found the good old gentle- 
man in his bed, comfortable, and doing well, the foot gone 
and safe in Salem. The end of it came when, as Dr. Jer- 
main said, " By-gonea were by-gones," Sickness came, fire 
visited the old house in which I lived one day : I was out of 
it by the wood pile, and heard a roar. My brother older, 
and mv sister younger looked up, and sparks and black smoke 
were pouring out of the chimney. " The house is on fire !" 
said my brother. We rushed in : (my brother always sent 
me ahead whether we were after pond-lillies, or frogs, or 
snakes.) As we came in we beheld the flames creeping up 
and rapidly destroying the bed curtains, whose voluminous 
folds had worked within their borders the pictures of Shake- 
speare's •■ Seven Ages.*' The fire scorched me some, burned 
all the hair off mv head, knocked me down, and my brother 
valicntlv drew me out. Never a prouder boy than J when, 
in two or three days after that. I received an entire suit of 
clothing (for all of ours were burned, together with all my 
father's books, medicines, etc..) made of blue cloth, almost 
covered witli bell buttons, together with a hat. a present 
from one of the Wendell family. We received many kind 
favors. Another house was built, which has been removed. 
Disease came. Mv eldest sister died at twentv-two. and was 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. $$ 

buried the day she was to have been married to Leonard 
Church, Esq., of Salem. My youngest brother was born at 
a time when we were houseless. My father became broken- 
hearted and never recovered his spirits, and in iSic)he passed 
away, dying by the roadside after a fatiguing travel, and his 
last visit to old Daniel Holbrook. where Mr. Maxwell now 
lives. His dead body was found next morning by the side 
of a by-road. Apoplexy or heart disease, we know not 
which, ended his mortal life, 

Then what? Why, then of course, " boys, lookout for 
yourselves." We had to scatter, and I left the good old town 
of Cambridge, and have not lived in it since, but have loved 
it, visited it. delivered the address at the dedication of your 
beautiful cemetery, was given a lot there, deposited the re- 
mains of all my family there who had died, and there, per- 
haps, my own will rest. Well, I ask no pleasanter place. 
I ask no more of you, dear friends, than that you, with me, 
should try to prove ourselves as good as our ancestors, and 
as much better as our advantages enable us, and I may say 
demand of us, that we should become. God grant this, and 
the heart of a Cambridge boy, which has no wrinkles in it, 
though my brow be so, will always dilate with pleasure, as 
it always has, when asked " where were you born?" to be 
enabled to say, " In old Cambridge. Washington county, N. 
Y." [Applause.] • 

Music by the band. 

The President — I want the ear and eye of every person 
here present while I present to you this gentleman. I want 
you to look at the connecting link between the present and 
past generation. This is Mr. John Weir. Look at these 



56 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

shoulders. Thev were not b.iilt of mince pie and fancy can- 
dies. He is ninety-six years of age ; only four years behind 
the birth of the old town. Right here in front of us is an- 
other relic — the daughter of the first settled minister ever in 
the old town. The lady is one of the most interesting spec- 
tators, I will venture, in this entire crowd. She is the 
daughter of the Rev. Thomas Beveridge. in her eighty-second 
year, I believe, her memory good, and will quote poetry 
against any one. and is acquainted with more of the best 
books in the language than almost any man or woman here. 
I want the ear of the ministers of the old town of Cambridge 
— I propose, and I will pledge myself to make Mr. Weir an 
honorary member of our great National Society — the Bible 
Society. Will any minister volunteer to make him an hon- 
orary member of any or all the benevolent societies in 
our land ? I now have to announce the conclusion of the 
first part of the exercises, and invite you to partake of the 
substantial.^. 

The collation having been disposed of. the President said : 
We have the pleasure and privilege to-day of introducing to 
this audience another of the " Sons of Cambridge." a man 
whose graphic pen and travels have brought to our firesides 
the custom and character of the inhabitants of almost every 
country on the face of the globe. Before I introduce Dr. 
Prime, will the reverend gentleman pardon me if I say 
that there are just as fine orchards growing on the sides of 
these hills, and as tempting apples as ever grew in your 
happy boyhood days. 

Dr. Prime — What is the allusion to an orchard? 

Tiii. President — E understood, in the days of your boy- 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. ^ 

hood, thfre were some very fine, tempting apples on the 
sides of one of those fine hills, and if you might favor the 
audience with an account of them here, I don't know that it 
will hurt anything or anybody. 

Dr. Prime — I never hook, and tell. [Laughter.] 

ADDRESS BY REV. S. IREN.EUS PRIME, D. D. 

I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. President, for these very 
flattering remarks. I regret, too, that the state of my throat 
(I have a chronic difficulty) prevents me from speaking so 
as to be heard by any great number of those assembled, and 
I can speak but a very few moments anyway. 

I count it as one of the misfortunes of my life that I was 
not born in old Cambridge. If I had been consulted on the 
subject that misfortune would not have happened. [Laugh- 
ter.] It is just sixty years ago this summer since I came to 
old Cambridge, and as that was in the year 1S13, in the time 
of the war, I came " in arms." [Laughter.] My mother's 
arms. And that good lady who brought me here lives to- 
day, and although she can not be here in person with you. I 
come to bring you her salutations and to tell you that every 
hill and plain, every son and daughter of old Cambridge are 
dear to her heart to-day. [Applause.] My recollection 
does not embrace that early period of your history when the 
war with Great Britian called out your fathers to the battle 
fields ; but I have often heard my father relate the story of 
those times, when with his horse and chaise he followed his 
people on their march to the front, giving them his blessing. 
My venerable friend, Dr. Gillette, was one of the heroes of 
that day. and you have heard this morning from his eloquent 
lips how he was rescued from the cannon's mouth. [Laugh- 



58 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

ter.] And he stands before you to-day a spared monument 
of those " times that tried men's souls" — soles of their boots 
when they marched away. [Laughter.] He is one of the 
heroes of those times. I was a puling infant in my mother's 
arms and therefore cannot "• fight those battles o'er." I can 
o-o back, however, more than half of the century, which 
closes to-day, and bring before my mind familiar faces, ob- 
jects and events that have passed away from the sight of 
men, and which are remembered by very few who are around 
me now. I remember when the first arched bridge was built 
over the river at Buskirks, and when we opened the bridge 
with a speech and a prayer, and if there is a man here to-day 
who was on that bridge at that time I would like to have him 
say so. [Xo response.] There. I am ahead of the crowd 
on that point. I remember when there was a live elephant 
swimming in the saw mill pond. If there is any one here 
who saw that elephant in that pond I would like to have 
him say so. [" I say so; I saw the elephant."] My friends 
are here you see. They've kt seen the elephant." He 
brought onlv a small trunk with him, and didn't stay. 
[Laughter.] And who remembers when the son of Mr. 
Dennis, the post-master, was drowned in that pond? [Xo 
response.] There, you see. because lie was a boy with me 
I remember that more distinctly than many of those who are 
older than I was at that time. I remember, also, when a 
stage full of passengers was overturned in front of the tavern, 
right opposite the old White Meeting House, by the driver 
trying to show how short a turn he could make with 
his horses on a full run, and every person in the stage 
was injured. They were distributed among the neighbors 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 59 

and cared for hospitably until they were able to he removed. 
Mr. Benjamin Crocker— Are you not mistaken about 
its being a son of Mr. Dennis who was drowned? It was a 
son of Mr. Porter. 

Dr. Prime— I am not going to be catechised. [Laughter.] 
They will put me through in the County Post, and correct 
me next week. It was somebody's son. anyway. 

These are little incidents that happened in Cambridge fifty 
years ago. which have passed out of the memory of most of 
those now living, and who were then here, and date before 
the birth of many present. There are some (not many) who 
were residents of this town when I came into it. They were 
boys then, and have grown to be men now — old men — heroes 
of to-day, like Revolutionary soldiers, survivors of the battles 
that gave birth to the nation. So a man who was here sixty 
or seventy years ago is one of those who were in the youth 
of the town, and assisted inlaying the foundations of those 
institutions which give to it strength and character in its 
manhood and its age. The two institutions that have given 
to Cambridge its distinctive character are religion and educa- 
tion. The men who promoted the one were the great pro- 
moters of the other, and thus a religious and intelligent 
atmosphere has pervaded this beautiful valley through suc- 
cessive generations. The Revs. Thomas Dunlap and Alex- 
ander Bullions, great and good men, combined the firmness 
and courage of Scotchmen with the practical good sense and 
tact of Americans. Dr. Bullions and my father worked in 
harness together six days in the week to do good in this town, 
and on Sunday they each of them fought the devil on his 
own hook. [Laughter and applause.] The good Dr. 



60 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

Bullions was so hampered by the traditions of his church 
that he could not do as he would love to, exchange pulpits 
or pull in the same traces with his brother and friend on 
Sunday. So the old White Meeting House and the old Yel- 
low Meeting House stood like two unfriendly, if not hostile, 
forts on Sunday, while the captains and soldiers were on the 
best of terms during the week. I have not heard how my 
father and Dr. Bullions get along now, but I have no doubt 
the\- are both praising God in the same temple, where " con- 
gregations ne'er break up, and Sabbaths have no end." 
[Applause.] 

Of all the elders in both of those churches who were on the 
ground when I came, not one survives. Of the second set in 
my father's church, only one remains, and he is our vener- 
able and respected friend, Benjamin Crocker, [applause] 
who corrected me a few moments ago. And while speaking 
I have been thinking, and 1 rind he was right and I was 
wrong. That's the power of conscience. [Laughter.] 

What noble men, and true they were in those religious 
bodies, which then included almost all the inhabitants of this 
region. I cannot now recall their names. The forms of 
some of them arise to my sight as I look back, and of Steven- 
son, Ashton, Van Tuyl, Wright. Warner, Thompson. Mc- 
Lean. McKie, Wells and Robertson, many of the old residents 
with whom I had personal associations; the memories are 
very interesting, but would not interest others. 

Dr. Gillette was mistaken when he said that John Dunahue 
sang psalms in the old yellow meeting house, although he 
was deaf and dumb. [Laughter.] My dear fellow— friend 
— T beg your pardon. [Laughter] John Dunahue was not 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 6 1 

deaf and dumb. He talked all the time. [Laughter.] He 
did nothing else but talk. Why, he came into my father's 
church one Sunday, and my father had a young man — a boy 
almost — who was just out of the seminary, to preach for 
him. As the young man stood up in the pulpit before the 
congregation, and was just about to name his text, John 
Dunahue. a tall, gray-haired, splendid looking man, but who 
was a little wandering, as some other people are, jumped up 
and leaned over the pew, and put his hand behind his ear, 
whereupon the boys began to titter, and says my father, 
"Mr. Dunahue, will you please to sit down?" tb I am a 
little hard of hearing and I want to catch the text," says 
John. [Laughter.] Says my father, "Mr. Dunahue, will 
you sit down ?" " I say I am a little hard of hearing and I 
want to catch the text." My father says, "Mr. Dunahue, 
sit down !" and my father could speak so as to be heard ten 
times farther than I can. You could hear him cough half a 
mile, [laughter] and if he were here to-day speaking, instead 
of me, he could be heard pretty near to the end of the grove. 
He had a tremendous voice. He said, "Mr. Dunahue, sit 
down !" and John dropped as though he were shot with that 
cannon Dr. Gillette spoke of. But recovering himself, he 
rose up and said as he strammed out and down the aisle, I 
would have you to know, Mr. Prime, I don't care that for 
you nor none of your journeymen soul-savers either." [Great 
laughter.] He was not deaf and dumb — not a bit of it. 
[Laughter.] 

Dr. Gillette — I stand corrected. 

Dr. Prime — I want now to tell you about a very different 
kind of man. and something to connect old Cambridge with 



()2 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

one of the great events of the present time. I do not believe 
there is a man or woman in this assemblage who has any 
idea that old Cambridge has anything to do with the expedi- 
tion that has just been sent out to the north pole in search of 
Captain Hall's party. Well, I will tell von something about 
it that will show vou that old Cambridge is very intimately 
identified with that expedition. Right there on that street 
running up to the White Meeting House corners, is the house 
in which Esquire King used to live. He was one of those 
Baptists that Dr. Gillette spoke of who would come to the 
old White Meeting House to hear good preaching. [Laugh- 
ter.] lie always came to our church, and a gentleman tried 
to prove to me. when I met him in Troy the other day. that 
he knew me, by saving that Esquire King used to make long 
prayers ; ww and," said he, " I went to the schoolhouse where 
there was a meeting, one night, and you (a little boy) and 
your brother Alanson were standing in the porch, and we 
were all waiting for Esquire King to get through praying so 
we could go in, and after standing there until we were tired, 
you looked up to your brother and said, ut Lanse, I believe 
the old 'Squire is going to pray all night." Esquire King 
was a capital man ; he had a very pretty daughter ; her 
name was Caroline. And the boys used to tease me by say- 
ing : 

'• Samuel Prime, so they say. 
Goes a courting night and day. 
With sword and pistols by his side, 
And Caroline King shall be his bride." 

Which, by the way, did not come to pass, because before 
I was old enough to have a bride the Squire, with his pretty 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 63 

daughter, moved off* into Ohio, and settled in the neighbor- 
hood of Dayton, and the daughter Caroline, that the boys 
promised should be my bride, became the bride of Mr. 
Greer, of the city of Dayton, a great naturalist, who has a 
splendid minerological collection, and her son, who is a gal- 
lant officer in the U. S. navy, was selected two months ago 
as the most energetic, faithful and reliable man to take charge 
of the ship Tigress, which went out in search of Captain 
Hall. So you see that old Cambridge, through the pretty 
girl that was destined to be my bride, is now identified with 
this great expedition and enterprise. [A voice — kk Thereby 
reflecting great credit on Dr. Prime !"] Yes, somewhat, I 
think. 

There was another good man who once owned these beau- 
tiful trees — this grove in which we are assembled to-da\% and 
the adjoining groves. These very spots where we are now 
assembled are all precious to me, for I lived very near to 
them on the other side. I remember perfectly well, when T 
was a boy less than ten years old, that I was in the habit of 
coming into these groves, solitary and alone, and sitting at 
the foot of these trees, and listening to the winds sighing 
through the tree tops, and being saddened or made solemn, 
as I sat there thinking of what I would try to do when I grew 
up to be a man. I know that the resolutions I at that time 
formed at the foot of some of these very trees were enduring 
through the fifty years that have followed since. John P. 
Putnam, who owned these woods, was a lineal descendant of 
old Israel Putnam, of revolutionary memory. When I was 
a boy of only four or five years of age, Mr. Putnam came to 
mv father's house and presented to him three volumes of 



64 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

ki Locke on the Understanding'," together with a note request- 
ing him to keep them for his little son Samuel until he should 
be able to read them ; and I have preserved those volumes as 
choice books in my library to the present day. and they are 
constantly before me in my study. Old Cambridge, through 
that man. preserves to this day the first weapons that were 
ever drawn and used in the battle of the American Rev- 
olution. I suppose that is a fact which is not generally 
known to a great many who are present, but those who are 
familiar with the history of the Revolution will remember 
that when a detachment of British soldiers, under the com- 
mand of Major Pitcairn, approached the volunteers at Con- 
cord. Major Pitcairn drew one of his pistols from the holster 
and discharged it at the Americans and ordered his men to 
"come on." They did come on and were met with a volley 
which sent them in retreat, and Pitcairn's horse was shot 
from under him. and his pistols fell into the hands of the 
Americans ; they were given to General Putnam, and from 
him they descended to John P. Putnam, and I am going to 
show them to you to-day. [The speaker here exhibited the 
same.] One of these is the first weapon that was discharged 
in. the war of the American Revolution. I regard those 
pistols as the most interesting relics of that time, and of them 
old Cambridge ought to be proud, and she should preserve 
them among her archives to be handed down from generation 
to generation. 

Now. I think, for a man with a sore throat, I have talked 
long enough. [Loud cries of ' k go on."] Throngs of asso- 
ciations crowd on my mind as I begin to tell of the men and 
women who were my companions and associates, or my 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 6$ 

seniors in days gone by, but they are mostly personal recol- 
lections. The boys who were my playmates and companions 
are associated with scores of delicious memories, the last 
that will ever fade from an old man's mind. 

If it were fitting that a woman should speak in public, I 
would call on one who is here present, representing a historic 
family, long identified with the history and prosperity of this 
town — I refer to Mrs. Rice, formerly Miss Catherine Wen- 
dell, whose presence is one of the peculiar pleasures of this 
great occasion. 

I wish I could get the hand of Robert Coulter. Russell 
Ackley and Robert Robertson, and some of the Crocker 
boys, the Warners and Johnsons, and others who were at 
school with me. Some of you remember Joseph Law. the 
son of " Butter John" Law, a brother of George Law. Joseph 
was a splendid man. If his life had been spared to this day 
he would have been one of the great men of this nation. 
He went from here to New York, studied law, became a 
partner of Dudley Selden, then died in early life. Alas ! 
how many of the youth who were my companions forty vears 
ago are now beyond the centuries in the eternities ? How 
changed the scenes that my heart rejoiced in ! The streams 
in which the trout waited for me, and came out at my invi- 
tation, are almost dry. The streets and lanes are no longer 
those in which I played and strayed. The fields that were 
once harvested for corn are now covered with beautiful 
houses, but the same old hills are here — the eternal hills — 
they stand sentries of this glorious plain, and the same skies 
bend lovingly over it. and the same God is father of us all. 
Like Jerusalem, old Cambridge is dear to her sons, who 



f,G CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof, 
and we can piously say. " If I forget thee, old Cambridge, 
let my right hand forget its cunning, and my tongue cleave 
to the roof of my mouth." 

For myself I can say with the sincerity of one who was 
taught, in this town, to speak the truth, first, last and always. 
I can say with truth that having traveled since I left this val- 
lev through every country in Europe, from Madrid to Mos- 
cow, and wandered along the shores of Asia and Africa, I 
never yet found a spot where more that goes to make up all 
that is enjovable in life is to be found than in this very valley. 
[Applause.] One hundred years have passed since it was 
settled by white men. The century has been crowned with 
peace, prosperity and happiness. May the future be as the 
past, and more abundant, and when our children's children's 
children shall celebrate the second centennial, may they bless 
God for us as we now bless Him tor our fathers. [Great 
Applause.] 

The choir then sang 

HOME, SWEET HOME. 
Mid pleasures and palaces tho' we may roam, 

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ; 
A charm from the skies seem to hallow us there, 

Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere, 
Home, home, sweet, sweet home, 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. 

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain, 

Oh ! give me my lowly thatched cottage again ! 
The birds singing gaily, that come at my call, 

( )h ! give me sweet peace of mind, dearer than all, 
Home, home, sweet, sweet home, 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. 



OLD TOWX OF CAMBRIDGE. 6j 

The President — The next thing in order is a poem by 
Mrs. M. E. Doig, of Jackson, N. Y., but as you can easily 
see that this is a very formidable audience to face, by her 
own request, her poem will be read by one with whom you 
are all familiar — Judge Gibson of Salem. Judge Gibson 
then read the following poem : 

CENTENNIAL DAY. 

BY MRS. M. E. DOIG, JACKSON. 

We stand in the midst of a mighty throng, 
Of the old, and the young, and the fair ; 

Familiar smiles brighten every face, 

And jubilant tones fill the air. 
We see them, and yet we regard them not, 

Their faces are fading away ; 
And with phantom forms and echoless feet, 

Old Cambridge is peopled to-day. 

The aged are here with the hoary heads, 

The youth with the laughing eyes ; 
The little child, at its mother's side, — 

From many a grave they rise ; 
From graves forgotten, aDd sunken down, 

'Neath the sods of an hundred years ; 
They meet each other with happy smiles, 

They part with the bitterest tears. 

Their attire is quaint, with the olden style, 

Each countenance firm and sincere ; 
Their eyes — the mirrors of hearts that know 

No shadow of cowardly fear. 
The grass has vanished from yonder field, 

In its place cling the tangled vines ; 
'Neath the waving branches of forest trees, 

The swarthy red hunter reclines. 



68 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

The streets are soft with a carpet of moss, 

The dwellings have dwindled away, 
Where lingered the sound of the voices of men, 

We hear only wood songs to-day. 
A log hut here, and another there, 

Are the homes of the noble and brave, 
Who lived and loved, who struggled and fought,— 

Who won, and our liberty gave. 

But the distant valleys are darkened with smoke, 

Where the boomings of cannon arise ; 
And it hovers in clouds o'er the blood stained earth, 

That echo the battle fiend's cries. 
Ah me ! we sigh for the many who fell, 

We weep with the many bereft ; 
But time has been tender, and gathered them all, 

No trace of their sorrow is left. 

But a sacred inheritance rests' with us still, 

Not the wealth that our forefathers gave, 
Nor the fertile meadows their thrift has prepared, 

Nor the homes they perished to save. 
Not these, tho' precious, the fruit of their toil, 

'Tis the spirit that burns in each breast : 
The will to defend both our freedom and rights, 

And to fight for the homes God has blest. 

But a century more will swiftly glide by. 

When we will be mingled with clay, 
And the question that rises within us, is this : 

Will we be remembered as they ? 
Will the record we leave in honor descend 

Thro' the mighty mutations of years ? 
Will people be proud of our memory then, 

As we, of the old pioneers i 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 09 

Will they tell their children that virtue and truth 

Was their ancestor's motto and pride ? 
Or, will they reap with tears what we scatter with smiles, 

With vice for their watchword and guide ? 
Soon, neighbors, the places that know us this year 

Will know us no more, and for aye, 
Yet, an hundred years hence, the power may be felt 

Of words that are spoken to-day. 

Long life to old Cambridge, let each cup be filled, 

And each son and daughter drink deep 
To the land that we honor, the land that we love, 

The place where our forefathers sleep. 
To those who hereafter inherit this wealth 

Be its honor more precious than gold ; 
And may we, looking down from the homes of the just ! 
See Cambridge two hundred years old. 
The President — The authoress of this poem is a niece of 
the gentleman who read it. We now desire to exhibit the 
young ladies and gentlemen in the costumes of one hundred 
years ago. 

The President — The toasts are now in order. The first 
is, " We enjoy the benefits of the trials and hardships of our 
Fathers who settled this town ; may we imitate their vir- 
tues." This will be responded to by Rev. Mr. Brown, who 
is the pastor of the church Mr. Jermain alluded to as having 
^een organized by Philip Embury. 

REV. O. A. BROWN'S REMARKS. 

We are not alone. The perfume of the past is around us 
and in our hearts to-day. Our fathers are with us again. 
This valley is filled with their voices. They speak to us not 
from the public record only, but from the private history of 
our own experience. They speak to us in a thousand 



£0 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

remembrances, in a thousand incidents, in a thousand events 
and associations. They speak tons not only from their silent 
graves, but from the throng of life. We live in converse 
with those who once lived and conversed with us. Their 
well remembered tones mingle with the whispering breezes. 
The valley is filled with their shadowy train. 

But there are more substantial expressions of their presence 
with us. The valley is filled with their labors, with their 
works. Their handiwork meets our eye at every turn ; their 
footsteps are in our paths ; their presence is in our dwellings. 
Old Cambridge is lifted up out of ordinary and indifferent 
places because of what has been done by those who are gone, 
and the memorials of their deeds which still remain. We 
see dwellings which speak to us of other things than earthly 
convenience or fleeting pleasure, which speak to us the holy 
recollections of lives which were passed in them and have 
passed away from them. We see everywhere inscribed the 
touching story of joy and sorrow, love, heroism, patience, 
which lived here, here breathed its first hope, its last sigh 
generations ago. We behold scenes which offer more than 
fair landscape and living stream to our eyes, which tell us of 
genius, of fortitude, of hope that lived here, suffered here, 
died here. We behold this valley as more than soil and 
scenery, rich and fair though they be ; we behold it as writ- 
ten over with histories, as a sublime page on which are 
recorded the lives of noble men. 

And now our thoughts are of our fathers' trials and toils 
and tears and of their virtues-; of their virtues, for death 
kindly throws a veil over their infirmities and leaves but a 
vision of their better nature. You know the vision is always 



OI.T) TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 7 1 

loveliest when it has vanished, or is vanishing, for often we 
perceive not till we hear the flutter of the parting wing, that 
an angel has been with us. We think of them with melting 
hearts to-day because of their sacrifices for us. They sowed 
in tears that we might reap in joy. They scattered seed ; 
we stand amid landscapes clothed with golden harvests. 
And it is ever so. It is by the sacrifices of the father that 
blessings are secured to the son. It is by throes that privi- 
leges like men are born. It is by death that the world 

advances. 

Life evermore is fed by death 
In earth, and sea, and sky ; 
And that the rose may breathe its breath, 

Something must die. 
From hand to hand life's cup is passed, 

Up beings piled gradations, 
Till men to angels yield at last 
The rich collation. 
Our fathers have transmitted to us their names, their blood 
and their work. And to-day their voices call up to us say- 
ing, — inasmuch as you enjoy that which cost us toil and 
tears, do not dishonor our names and our blood, but finish 
our work, imitating us only in that which ennobled us. and 
which alone will ennoble you — our virtues. 

Society has a right to expect, nay more, demand that the 
work of each generation shall be better than that of the pre- 
ceding. With constantly increasing facilities, and with the 
experience of generations before us. we would prove recreant 
to the trust imposed, to the hopes of the past, to the demands 
of the present, and to the possibilities of the future, if our 
work is not well and noblv done. Where, if not here, can 



72 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

we learn these things without which our work will be in 
vain? Where, if not here, cradled between these hills, can 
one learn fidelity, steadfastness and purity? Here, where 
we see the rich and faithful return of harvests, teaching us 
fidelity ; where the eve forever falls on these immovable hills, 
emblems of steadfastness, and where the purling streams sing 
of purity. The greater our privileges the greater our respon- 
sibility. The privileges are ours, the responsibility is ours. 
To have had a virtuous ancestry is much ; to have inherited 
the dwelling-places of our fathers is much ; to dwell in the 
midst of scenery which ap eals to all that is pure and grand 
and beautiful within us is much ; but to be virtuous ourselves, 
to improve our inheritance, to be pure in heart, grand in 
soul, and beautiful in life is more ; 

"Let us then be up and doing." 
This valley is no longer the mere material thing it was at 
the beginning : it is the tomb of generations. From out of 
its recesses what oracles come : upon the majestic brow of 
these hills what names are written? The very dwellings 
have become monumental. Their walls have echoed to joys 
and sorrows that have passed away. High, heroic hearts 
have throbbed within them, that beat no more. Not the 
present alone is here : but the image of the majestic past 
stalks through our midst and casts its solemn mantle over the 
life of to-day. We live that we may garner up the treasures 
of that past, and adding to them the little that we can. trans- 
mit them to those that come after. We guard the holy be- 
quest. See we to it that it waste not nor dwindle in our 
hands. Let us struggle manfully, giving heed to the voices 
that are forever calling to us. conscious of our responsibility 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. . 73 

in the sight of men. and in the sight of God. [Applause.] 
The President — The next toast is ki Our Adopted Citi- 
zens." which will be responded to by Mr. Fillmore, formerly 
pastor of lhe old White Church for many years. 
rev. mr. Fillmore's remarks. 
Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen: A 
friend of mine said to me once I "was a fool" [laughter] 
because I arose to speak and had no preparation for it. I 
did not know until five minutes ago that I was going to be 
called upon to speak on this occasion, and vet I have con- 
sented to appear before this audience — this grand presence 

these grand, noble, far-known and renowned guests who are 
here to-day. The Scandinavians have a kind of a fable that 
the rainbow is the arch on which the gods come down to 
visit the earth. Well, there has been a kind of a rainbow 
over Cambridge to-day. The gods have come down to visit 
us. What can he say who comes after the gods? (A voice, 
••follow you.") [Laughter.] There is a friend here who 
has ••seen the elephant." a live elephant, in one of the ponds. 
[Laughter.] And now I have seen a live elephant floating 
in all these reminiscences of the past fifty years. What can 
I do. coming after such an one to speak, without prepara- 
tion, to you. dear old friends, many of you? Well. I am to 
speak on: what is the subject? (The President— " Our 
Adopted Citizens.") That's it. I was an adopted citizen 
ot the old town of Cambridge. I came here just thirty years 
ago last month, a young, untutored sort of a boy, to take 
charge of one of the congregations in the old town. I was 
brought up in the western part of the State of New York, 
and as I came here to this old town, and got acquainted with 



-74 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

the people, and went into their homes, and mingled with 
them in society, I at once contrasted the condition and the 
elevation (if I may use the word) of this town and community 
with a town not quite so old in western New York. I was 
impressed with the cultivation and advancement in religion 
and science, and also was I impressed by the schools, and 
what I then beheld imprinted itself on my mind, that in not 
main towns in the State of New York was there a higher 
degree of social advancement, of moral cultivation, and of 
that Social kind of feeling that is refined, pervading all classes 
of the community. I recollect a friend of mine said I would 
find at least fifteen piano-fortes in the old congregation that I 
then came to minister to. I thought that was wonderful. I 
came from one of the western New York towns : we had not 
had the same length of time in which to make our advance- 
ment, but I thought then, as I have ever thought since, that 
you will go a great ways and not find so much that is grand 
and imposing, that is endearing and elevating in the civiliza- 
tion and general condition of the town, as here in this grand 
old town of Cambridge. Her groves are delightful : her 
streams and hills beautiful. 1 have looked upon the hills 
and valleys and the streams, clear across to San Francisco, 
and then I have been away up three or four hundred miles 
on the Columbia river, and never have I seen any more 
beautiful prospects than are before my eyes here to-day. 
And who do you think was with me far up the Columbia 
river? When 1 was upon one of the bluffs, and looked off 
upon one of the dells w here the Columbia pours through a 
channel only about eighty feet wide, rolling and tearing like 
Niagara : I say, when I stood there, it was with two persons, 



OLD TOWN OF. CAMBRIDGE. f$ 

one of them born in this town ; and wherever I went I found 
the town of Cambridge represented, and none of her repre- 
sentatives mean fellows either. [Applause.] They were 
men of standing, and women of cultivation wherever I went, 
showing that I am not flattering, and the reminiscences that 
come thronging up over my soul are like those of my brother 
and friend who has spoken to you of some time ago, because 
I am not as old as Mr. Prime, am I, brother Prime? (Mr. 
Prime — k ' I guess so ; I am only sixty.") I shall never catch 
up with him. [Laughter.] He has only about ten years 
the start of me. When I came here with these influences 
and impressions upon my mind, I felt that there was a work 
for me that perhaps I was not able to perform. When I 
arrived I associated with such men as old Dr. Bullions. He 
was the first man I met coming from Saratoga, and he was 
pointed out to me by a gentleman whom I have seen here 
to-day, and told it was Dr. Bullions. 

I came from where there were no Scotch or Irish churches. 
I had never heard any such name before. Afterwards I 
became acquainted with Dr. B. and the other ministers. I 
felt as though there was a work put upon me to do ; that I 
was scarcely able to do it because I was quite a young man, 
but I found, as I became acquainted with the ministers and 
the people generally of my own and the other congregations 
around the town, that there was a degree of intelligence that 
I had never before met, for I used to find some parishioners 
who were occupied evenings in reading Dick's Theology and 
such kindred works. They were reading about creeds and 
confessions and the good old doctrines, and it struck me as 
something very peculiar. When you have in this commu- 



76 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

nitv men and women like these, who are familiar with the 
great writers and their great thoughts, you have something 
to do if you will equal them. I tried to do just what I could, 
anil I staid here just about twelve years and three months, 
and I recollet when I come to go away they clustered around 
me from the different congregations, the people of the town 
encouraging me as I was going away. I might as well say 
1 have made more money going away than I ever did in stay- 
ing with the congregation. [Great laughter.] But what 
changes have come over this town since I came here. Dr. 
Prime once wrote me he was coming to Cambridge. He 
said he wanted to visit Cambridge after it had an iron rail 
thrust through its heart. That sounds just like Sam Prime. 
[Laughter.] There was no railroad here when I came. I 
came in a six-horse stage. Afterwards this railroad was put 
through here, and that improvement was manifest upon the 
community. You then began to build houses, and now as I 
ride through your streets I scarcely know where I am. 
These beautiful streets have been laid out. and these general 
improvements carried on in your 'midst, and I suppose that 
our •• adopted citizens" have been all harmonious with you 
in the improvements that have been made, and when you 
have those come to your town as your adopted citizens, you 
have found them reliable, and upon whom you could lean, 
and with whom von could labor and carry forward the great 
material improvements of the town. 

Not long ago 1 was called upon to address the Pioneers of 
Orleans county, in Western New York, and I went back and 
told them what had been the great means of the influence 
upon that community : that it had been the public schools. 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. ffi 

the education of the youth, and especially the churches. 
Those good old New England people who went to cutting 
down the forests clear through to western New York, when- 
ever the\- put up a few houses, up would go the old log 
schoolhouse, and that would answer for a time for their 
meetings, and after a little they erected churches. The 
church and the schoolhouse went together and made its im- 
pression upon that community just as it did here one hundred 
years ago and a little less. You account for the present cul- 
tivation and condition of the old town of Cambridge by its 
schoolhouses, its educational facilities, the churches that have 
been erected by the populace, and by the good morals that 
have prevailed. So that among all the communities of this 
State you will find but very few. as I have said, excelling. 

Now let the "adopted citizens" fall in with the general 
march and carry forward the same great institutions that 
have been established by the fathers, and, as has been said, 
imitate their example in establishing the facilities for educa- 
tion and religion, and one hundred years to come you shall 
find those worthy of the present generation occupying these 
houses in this town. — a generation we hope that will far 
exceed the generation that now prevails. 

I hope, if I have said anything that has not been very 
smart, or done anything that has not been perfectly prudent, 
you will pardon, because I have been called up for a moment. 
I could utter sentiments for an hour, but — (A voice — " Give 
us your hand.") [Great laughter, during which the speaker 
retired.] 

The President — The next toast, " The Churches and 
the Clergy," will be responded to by Rev. J. N. Crocker. 



7$ CENTENOTAIT. ANNTVEKSARY 

R. K. Crocker, Esq. — "Mr. President, I have no sugges- 
tions to make any further than it has been suggested here by 
others that the audience is already so tired by waiting that it 
is better for us to omit the responses to the toasts, begging 
the pardon ..of the , gentlemen "who had been selected to 
respond to them, and I would say to them that their addresses 
(if furnished) will be published hereafter. The following 
are the remaining toasts : 

"The Cambridge Washington Academy" — Rev. A. B. 
Bullions. D. D. I have a letter from Dr. Bullions, who was 
formerly Principal in the Academy, which will be published 
as a response. 

••The Press" — Col. McArthur, of the Troy Budget. 

"Washington County" — Hon. James Gibson. 

" The Village of Cambridge; May her citizens remember 
that • united we stand, divided we fall.'" — Rev. II. G. Blinn. 

Mr. Blixx — Yo don't know how much you lost there. 

Mr. Crocker — w - Sons of old Cambridge residing abroad" 
Judge Skinner was present to respond to that sentiment. 

.V Voice — I would like to know why we can't hear these 
men speak, and I move we stay until- we hear all of them. 

The motion being presented to the audience, it was carried 
by a tumultuous and overwhelming affirmative vote. 

HON. BENJAMIN SKIWKr's REMARKS. 

Friends and Fellow Citizens, and Formes Towns- 
man — 1 return you my sincere thanks tor the kind reception 

I have received at your hands, and I only regret that a more 
able. and eloquent person to address you in a proper manner 
was not called upon to respond to the sentiment proposed : 

II Sons of Old Cambridge residing abroad." After all the 



old- town ofcambridge: 79" 

speeches that we have heard, and the history of the town 
throughout, it would not be well for me to attempt to instruct 
you farther. Ninety-rive years ago my father settled in the 
western part of this town. I lived there until the year 1S40. 
Since that time I have scarcely set my foot in town, and 
when I returned the other day it seemed more to me that the 
magician's wand had waved over the land than that what I 
beheld was the workmanship of man. On behalf of those 
who have left this town and returned again, I return you my 
heartfelt and sincere thanks for the cordial welcome we have 
received, and the cordial welcome of *' old friends again." 
rev. John d. wells' remarks. 

Mr. President — I am the worst specimen of a thoroughly 
frightened Cambridge boy ever you saw. All of these boys 
that were born " in time" or - w out of time," are not so. Self- 
possessed, they are not afraid to say " their souls are their 
own." I was not born here. I never lived here but about 
ten years. I have been away about forty-two years, with an 
occasional visit. Now I am going to tell one or two things 
that have not been told, and then I will retire out of the way. 

This morning, long before daylight, a little owl perched 
himself somewhere near my 'indow, and screeched out his 
disapprobation of some things, and I said u Amen" to those 
things. One of those things was this : I suppose he was 
the great-great-grandson of some owl that lived in the old 
forests here, and watched over all the old stage drivers who 
came up here, and turned up by Chase's, or long before 
Chase was here. He just struck a chord in my breast that 
vibrates in my breast now. When I came out of Troy on 
the rails that went through Samuel Prime's heart, I thought 



So CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

" this is not the way to Cambridge; I must climb the old 
Mill Hill. I want to ride on the box with Charley Tingue, 
and see how he touches up those leaders of his with that in- 
imitable silk snapper, and lays the butt of that whip on his 
good old wheel horses, and brings them in all fresh, and all 
alive, knowing if he comes very near them that he loves 
them well." Is there anybody here who remembers " Fare- 
well?" (A voice — "I do, perfectly.") Are there any boys 
or girls here who ever played in good old Lowren Wright's 
blacksmith shop, and felt the mighty influence of that good 
old man? I have not heard his name mentioned here to-day. 
and yet he is represented here by sons who are exerting their 
influence in other spheres, and are well known here ; and I 
tell you, my friends, that the influence of these old families 
in the future is perpetuated in other communities, and will 
be as long as the sun shines. 

Did anybody ever see old Jimmy Stratton's steer? (A 
voice — w - I am the man.") I saw it too. Did you ever see 
him when he went to mill, riding astride of that steer, when 
the boys put the chip under the bag so when he got on the 
steer tipped him off and ran home? [Laughter.] The 
Cambridge boys were accustomed to do things of that kind. 

Did anybody in this assemblage know that Cambridge had 
a splendid "Central Park" long before New York people 
thought of it, and that the idea of " Central Park" originated 
here in Cambridge? Why. we knew wry well how we used 
to skate in and out; the girls did not skate then, but the} 
slid ; you can skate crooked, but you can't slide crooked : 
the girls would slide right straight into our arms. [Laughter.] 
Xow that was on the old park right before Samuel Prime's 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. - Si 

father's house, and yet he never mentioned it ; that old 
swamp. (Dr. Prime—" I left that for you/') I never knew 
him to leave anything for anybody before. [Great laughter.] 
But you see we were both born out of old Cambridge — a lit- 
tie out of Cambridge, and we are both marvelously kind 
toward each other. [Laughter.] 

I tell you, my friends, it seems to me. all joking aside, that 
the shades of our fathers and our mothers are here as real 
and as silent as the shadow of these trees. I have felt their 
influence. I bless God for that influence. I suppose no 
man or minister is here to-day who had Dr. Prime as his 
teacher, first in the school-room, and then in the pulpit. I 
had him as a parishioner. I had him hold up my hands 
when I was weak. I had him pour into my soul the grand 
truths that for years moulded this community. I had that 
influence follow me for years when I was a timid preacher 
of " The Word," and when he said to me, as old Dr. 
Beechersaid to him when he was deeply depressed, "Brother 
Prime, if you go to hell you have got to go there through the 
pulpit." That he said to me. He kept me in the pulpit 
when otherwise I should not have been there. 

I tell you that the grand influence of those grand old men 
— Dr. Bullions and Dr. Prime — is perpetuated, not only in 
this country, but all over the world. And after we shall all 
be together in Christ, the time for reminiscences will be 
long and sweet and blessed. 

A Voice — Now, Rev. Blinn, for that splendid speech we 
were so near losing. [Laughter.] 

REV. II. G. BLINN'S REMARKS. 

Ladies and Gentlemen — Mr. Wells has given my 



Sn '• CEXTE ffffMUf ANNIVERSARY 

speech. In reply to the sentiment. " The Village of Cam- 
bridge : may her citizens remember that ' united we stand, 
divided we fall' " ; of course this sentiment refers to the 
present citizens of Cambridge, and not to the fathers who one 
hundred years ago made this grove vocal, as their sons have 
done to-day. I had not the pleasure of knowing very inti- 
mately the people who resided here then ; most of them 
were strangers to me. But I have the pleasure of knowing 
well some of their sons ; and they have been called " worthy 
sons of noble sires." That is an original remark made by 
Dr. Prime. We never heard it said before by anybody. It 
struck me as being very truthful. They are noble sons — 
worthy sons — of noble sires. 

We are accustomed on such occasions to glorify Brother 
Jonathan, the " Universal Yankee." but I believe the fathers 
of these sons were, many of them, in the category in which the 
Sunday school boy placed our father Adam. The teacher 
asked "who was the first man?" A little fellow in one of 
the classes responded. ••George Washington." ••What! 
George Washington the first man?" "Yes; first in war, 
first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 
"Oh, no," said the teacher. "Adam was the first man." 
" Oh. well." said the little fellow. " if you are talking about 
foreigners, I suppose he was." [Great laughter.] And 
so the fathers of these noble sons were, many of them, in 
that category. They were really, at first, foreigners. We 
are here to commemorate their virtues, and I am here to tell 
you a truth that you may not have heard before, that 
"United" — I want the ladies to hear this, all the young 
ladies, and all the widows — " United we stand, divided we 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 83 

fall." [Laughter, and a voice, u I move he interpret that."] 
Well, it has been interpreted already. The ladies are for 
" union" — to a man ! (A voice, " You probably would like 
a job ?") Some one says I w T ant a job ; I would like the fee ! 
If anybody here is now prepared to enter into the " holy 
bond of wedlock" I will take the fee, and Mr. Wells will 
perform the ceremony ! [Laughter.] I need not occupy 
your time with a long speech on this occasion on the senti- 
ment proposed. One man never felled the forests, broke up 
the sod, and cultivated this "garden" — we might almost 
call it " the garden of the world." It was accomplished by 
united efforts. We should remember that nothing worth 
having was ever acquired in this world except at the end of 
a battle, and no battle can be fought single handed and alone. 
It was by union of effort that the churches and schoolhouses 
were built, and the people of this valley instructed, and when 
we can strike hands again, neighbor to neighbor, when we 
can sink all personal and all sectional jealousies and differ- 
ences, and as with the heart of one man, come up to the 
work and rebuild our schools that have fallen somewhat into 
disrepute, and rally around them we may hope for strength 
enough to stand and to go forward in the path w r hich our fathers 
marked out for us. But I will not weary you ladies ; remem- 
ber the sentiment, " United we stand." [Applause.] 

REV. J. N. CROCKER 

Responded as follows to the sentiment, " The Churches and 
the Clergy" : 

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: My 
first appearance before an audience in this community was 
up in yonder schoolhouse, when I said, 



84 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

11 You'd scarce expect one of my age 
To speak in public on the stage." 
I feel very much like that to-day, and I will assure you 

that I have just had the intermittent fever. I was told to 
speak, and then I was told I might not speak, and then I felt 
better, and I hope to feel better yet pretty soon. As the old 
Virginia clergyman said to his colored driver, who was taking 
him to church to preach, " I feel badly ; I have the headache." 
When he was through preaching and returning home, he 
said, "I feel better." "Well, massa," said the servant, "I 
should think you would, getting that load off your stomach." 

[Laughter.] 

If I am to represent the excellent clergy of the town, I sup- 
pose I must remember to be very " Shortt." [Laughter.] I 
believe I am a boy again to-day. I cannot realize that I stand 
here of age in the ministry. I am again passing through this 
grove, and verily, I tell you the same angels dwell in its 
leaves to-day as did when I carried my geometry and Virgil 
from yonder house to the Academy ; the same as when Dr. 
Prime was here listening to their whisperings ; and if not the 
angels, the same Holy Ghost. 

Why I should be called upon here to speak of the church 
and clergy I cannot think, for I was called upon to fill an- 
other man's place, unless it may be that the oldest elder of 
any church in the town is my father, and I his youngest child ; 
or perhaps it was because he who stood in that White church 
and rang out so clearly, " Woe is unto me if I preach not 
the gospel," so impressed me that I could not forget it, and I 
went on the bluff yonder and said, " I will do it!" And I 
have done it for twenty-one years, and I trust God will spare 
me to do it yet. [Applause.] 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 85 

T used to fancy in my boyhood that this was the old Gar- 
den of Eden. And because of that fancy I have had a dislike 
to making research and studying in regard to its geographi- 
cal position. I used to think of this plain and that creek 
yonder, and the other over there, and these hills, and finally 
thought in truth the spot were Eden. I don't know but it 
was. I am not going to dispute it. My heart would say 
"yes." I have learned to love all these places. There is 
not a foot of yonder farm that I have not turned with the 
plow, save where the rocks and trees forbade such work. I 
have lived here and been brought up here under the influence 
of the church, and I believe that the church has been the 
power under God, that has made Cambridge what it is. 
And I am here to-day receiving the answer to the Indian's 
prayer a few days ago in the Saratoga daily prayer meeting, 
" Oh, Lord, give us grace to stand to the rack and face the 
music !" So I have come here to u stand to the rack and face the 
music,' and say something in reference to this great and 
glorious subject. I believe this place is grand because God 
has made it grand with the glorious hills and lovely sunlight, 
but which never would have been what it is had not God 
sent people here who have always, to a good degree, obeyed 
his will. Those ministers of whom you have heard to-day 
— the good father Prime who baptized me (and I have felt 
the influence of it ever since, I believe,) and others main- 
tained the faith. That good old Dr. Bullions used to come 
into the Academy and hetchel us, and I am glad that he did, 
because it did me good that I have never got over. It has 
been said that they were united during the week in their 
labors, and perhaps somewhat divided on the Sabbath, but I 



86 I i NTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

think there was " unity in the Spirit" on that day. Did you 
ever think of the chorus of sentiment that has been in this 
community? Did you ever hear that throng singing, " The 
Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want." Did you ever think of 
that other one, rejoicing in Toplady's hymn, " Rock of ages, 
cleft for me?" and that other representative hymn by Charles 
Wesley, "Jesus, lover of my soul?" Are they not one? I 
believe with that music went up only one sentiment to 
heaven. And that sentiment, "One Lord, one faith, one 
baptism," has always been observed in this community, and 
w r ill be, I hope, until we shall worship in heaven the Lamb 
that has been slain. I am glad we have this truth represented 
and preached yet. 

There is one reminiscence that I have heard of that I sup- 
pose to be true, showing that the fathers in the church here 
were none of your Credit Mobilier nor whitewashing com- 
mittees. They thought they needed a new church up here. 
There was a steeple upon the old edifice. Part thought they 
might repair, but there was a committee finally appointed to 
investigate the matter to know whether it was true that the 
steeple was dangerous, as some asserted, or not. They 
secured a practical mechanic to investigate the matter. They 
accompanied him up into the steeple. It was none of your 
whitewashing investigations at all. It would not do to bore 
into the pillars to ascertain w r hether they were sound or not, 
but he vigorously applied the saw and thus " investigated" it 
until the steeple had to come down ; and then came along 
the deaf and dumb John Dunahue [laughter] and said : 

"A haughty priest, and an ignorant people, 

A great big meetinghouse without any steeple." 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 8j 

T believe we have the same kind of staunch men remaining here. 
I would not have wearied you with these remarks had it 
not been that I am a Cambridge born man. I am of this 
dust here. I would be ashamed of any Cambridge boy who 
would refuse to fill a gap when called upon. [Applause.] 

REMARKS OF JUDGE GIBSON. 

" The County of Washington" — Responded to by Hon. 
James Gibson, of Salem. 

What a history there is in the words and their connection ! 
How memory brings up the past and recalls the discovery of 
its territory in 1609 by Champlain ; the causes that for one 
hundred and fifty years after prevented its settlement ; the 
powerful armies that so often marched to and fro through its 
valleys ; the cruel raids that were so often made by means of 
its water courses, and war paths from the territory of one 
combatant to that of the other ; the fortresses once and again 
and again erected within its extended domain ; the open or 
covert attacks on them, and their destruction, sometimes even 
at the hands of the power that constructed them, in order to 
prevent their furnishing shelter to the advancing forces of the 
enemy ; and the pitched battles that were fought within its 
territory between the armies of the greatest nations on the 
continent of Europe, to procure or maintain an ascendancy 
in North America for one or the other. And then the thought 
arises that through its tangled wilds, or on the streams which 
Mowed through them the dusky warrior often sped to attack 
the defenseless settlements on the borders of New York or 
Massachusetts, and as often returned by one of its trails bear- 
ing the scalps of men, women and children, or driving their 
captives, and loaded with the plunder they had seized on 



88 CENTENNIAL ANNI\ ERSAJfeY 

their bloody foray, and the whole country over which they 
had swept as a besom of destruction, left desolate with fire 
and slaughter. One memorable party of this description, 
consisting of about nine hundred French and Indians, under the 
command of Major Rigaud de Vaudreuil, on the 20th day of 
August, 1746, captured Fort Massachusetts, in Hoosic, to 
gether with all its defenders, and the women and children 
which it sheltered, killing and scalping some, and carrying 
the rest into Canada as captives*, — in going, and with bootv, 
prisoners and scalps in returning, passed on their accustomed 
war trail within one hundred rods of the very place where 
now, one hundred and twenty-seven years later, we are 
assembled to celebrate the one hundredth natal year of Cam- 
bridge. And then rises in the mind's eye the early settle- 
ment of the county, the struggle of its pioneers in the fight 
for life with the wild beasts of the forest on the one hand, and 
with deathly famine on the other — the latter so severe that 
even corn for seed had to be obtained from the benificence of 
the State. And then, how title to nearly all our territory 
was obtained, being granted as bounty lands for volunteering 

•The larger portion of this raiding party started lor home on the morning succeed- 
ing the capture, and on the night of August 23d encamped on the high ground between 
the two ponds in the present town of Jackson. Norton's Redeemed Captive p. 15. 
But two or more skirmishing parties were seut out, one of which entering in or neat 
Coleraur, attacked an adverse party and slew and scalped Constaut Bliss, his oora- 
1 anions escaping by the fleetness of their feet. Drake's French and Indian War, 125. 
On the 25th August another party, sixty in number, " stealthily approached" Deer- 
field, about thirty miles easterly of Hoosic, but were providentially discovered befoi • 
they were in readiness for an attack, and thus, no doubt, many lives were saved. But 
the result was sad enough, as five persons were killed and scalped, several wounded 
and one taken captive. 76. 126. 

Another party, headed by Ensign Monsiguin, proceeded toward Fort Saratoga, sit- 
uated on the hill south of Galesville, in the present town of Easton, and meeting 
sev. nteen soldiers belonging to the garrison, took four of them prisoners and scalped 
four others. The remainder threw themselves pecipitatoly into the fort, followed Ly 
tin- enemy, who killed some of them. 10 X. }'. CW. Doe. 88. 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. So. 

as a soldier to defend the country from the combined attack 
of the French nation and their Indian allies. 

And here is called to mind that by the so-called " Hamp- 
shire Grants," great numbers of these soldiers who had 
labored and toiled through the heat and burden of that dread- 
ful war, relying on the good faith of the government to per- 
form its promises, and having received warrants for their 
promised lands, were driven from them, or forcibly prevented 
from settling on them by parties claiming under these grants, 
who had, in most cases, rendered no such services, or had 
paid little or nothing for the lands thus seized or forcibly held. 

And then, there looms up the war for liberty, for the right 
to govern ourselves through our representatives — " millions 
for defence, but not one cent for tribute" — resulting in revo- 
lution and in the conquering of the peaceful acknowledge- 
ment of that independence for which our fathers fought. 

This brings recollection to the organization of the state 
government, and the setting in motion of the wheels of local 
action through county, town and municipal creations, and 
here we reach the organization of our territory into the 
county of Washington. 

It was anciently in the county of Albany, which was one 
of the original counties into which the Province of New York 
was divided by an act of the legislative Assembly, passed in 
the year 16S1, and was so named after the Scottish ducal title 
of James, the Duke of York and Albany, to whom the 
province was granted by the lavish hand of Charles II, then 
King of England, and when organized as a county, embraced 
within its limits the whole of what is now the State of Ver- 
mont and all of northern New York. 



UX> CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

In 177 3 a ^ ^ ia ^ portion of Albany county north of the 
Batten Kill, and on the east side of the Hudson, was taken 
from Albany, with the exception of certain counties organized 
in what is now eastern Vermont, and was created a county and 
named Charlotte, after the Queen consort, wife of George 
III, then King of Great Britain. 

By the result of the war of the revolution and the organi- 
zation of the State of New York, the upsetting of existing 
arrangements became quite common, and thus it happened 
that by an act passed by the Legislature of New York on 
the 2d day of April, 1784, the county of Charlotte was or- 
dained "to be hereafter called and known by the name of 
Washington." 

But as will be observed, this territory did not include any 
part of the old towns of either Cambridge or Saratoga, the 
former having within its borders the present towns of Jack- 
son, White Creek and Cambridge, with a part of eastern 
Vermont, and the latter including the whole of what was then 
known as the East-town, or the easterly part of the town of 
old Saratoga, and now called Easton. 

By the act dividing the county of Albany into districts, 
passed on the 12th of March, 1772, it was enacted that all 
that part of Albany county lying north of Schaghticoke and 
east of Saratoga, be what was then called a district, and 
named Cambridge, and it was thereby enabled to elect cer- 
tain officers to manage its affairs, and a Supervisor to act in 
county affairs with those of the other districts. It remained 
as a district in the county of Albany till it was organized as 
a town in 17SS, and as such continued in that county till 
annexed to the county of Washington, in the year 1 791 . 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. QI 

It may be interesting to notice that a most persistent effort 
was made by certain parties on the Hampshire Grants, 
assisted by some few active men in this county, to carry into 
Vermont the entire territory now in the county of Washing- 
ton. For that purpose, what was called a " Union conven- 
tion" was held at Cambridge on the 9th, and adjourned to 
the 15th and 16th of May, 17S1, at which certain persons 
attended and took seats, claiming to represent the districts of 
Cambridge, Black Creek (now Hebron), Granville, Skeens- 
borough, and other districts in the now county of Washington, 
and agreed with a committee appointed for that purpose by 
the Legislature of Vermont, on a basis of union with that 
state, of tne territory now in our county. This action was 
reported by the committee to the Legislature of Vermont at 
an adjourned meeting held at Bennington on the 15th of 
June, 1781, and was agreed to by that body, and thereupon 
certain persons claiming to represent the district above men- 
tioned being in attendance, " on taking the necessary oaths 
to qualify them to a seat," took seats in that body as mem- 
bers, claiming to represent the districts now in this county in 
the Legislature of Vermont, and continued to do so for some 
time, and voting and acting in its proceedings. Among the 
acts this body, thus constituted, undertook to give the sanc- 
tion of the law, was one incorporating this county into and 
making it an integral part of the quasi State of Vermont, and 
dividing it into towns, and providing for the holding of town 
meetings by Vermont authority. But the delegates, so called, 
were not sustained by the people of the county, and the 
whole project fell to the ground, and the territory sought to 
be taken out of the State remained intact a part of New York, 



92 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

and there we trust it will always stand, leal and true, in the 
future as in the past. 

The name borne by the county is significant and illustrious, 
and will ever recall the great works and noble character of 
our distinguished namesake, and when given to us at our 
new birth in liberty and freedom, was bestowed in grateful 
acknowledgement of the heroic achievements in the war of 
the revolution of those who had made its soil their home, and 
thus rendered the name peculiarly appropriate. It was there- 
fore neither an idle compliment nor unworthily bestowed. 

May we, and those w T ho shall follow us from generation to 
generation, do nothing which shall dishonor the great name 
of him our country bears — the patriot Washington ! 

SPEECH OF C. L. MACARTHUR. 

Mr. President and Ladies and Gentlemen : About 
one hundred years ago the British government (its navy 
department) had a practice which they called u crimping." 
When their ships were short of men they sent out their drum- 
mers, sergeants and " press gangs" and grabbed whoever 
they could get hold of and put them on board their ships of 
war. That practice was called " crimping," and one of the 
reasons why this country went to war with Great Britain 
was because then, and in later years, the naval force of that 
country " crimped" with their press gang on the people of 
this country, tearing men away from their homes unwillingly. 

Gentlemen, this committee of yours has been practicing 
that old thing that was prevalent one hundred years ago ; 
they have been " crimping" me on this occasion. They have 
brought me up standing at a moment's notice to respond for 
the Press. 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 93 

For the Press — how great the theme ! A hundred years 
ago and the presses of this country and the presses of the old 
Mother World were few indeed. Benjamin Franklin, whom 
we may call the father of the printing press in this country, 
was just one hundred years ago to-day crossing the broad 
Atlantic, at the age of sixty-seven, to act as the agent of a 
few of the struggling colonies of this continent, and after- 
wards he filled that position with great honor and credit to 
himself at the Court of St. James. Why, gentlemen, one 
hundred years ago is the briefest time in the progress of God's 
events, or in the progress of God's history. I saw a para- 
graph to-day that will make you gentlemen blush when you 
come to reflect upon it at your centennial boasts. I saw that 
the German philosophers have cyphered it out that this old 
globe of ours is two hundred million years old. (Sensation.) 
What do you think of that, gentlemen, who are bragging of 
one hundred years to-day? It is but a drop in the bucket in 
the passage of time. The speculative philosophers have a 
theory that civilization travels in cycles ; that it moves around 
in circles ; that civilization, like everything else human, has 
its early birth, its slow growth, its meridian maturity, its 
age, and its decay. That civilization sinks back, like the 
tree that rots at the root and goes back to its primitive 
elements until new forces come in to lift it out of the quag- 
mire, and again start it on a new career of progress. If we 
look through the history of this world, at all that has been 
performed, spoken of, written of, we shall find that four or 
five thousand years ago there was a civilization in ancient 
Egypt, in the valley of the Nile, which in many respects 
vied with the civilization of to-day. And yet that civilization 



94 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

traveled in its cycle, performed its work, and died out, leav- 
ing a broad, black abyss, where ignorance prevailed, upon 
this globe of ours. It was not until the press and the pulpit 
combined — the pulpit because it was free ! The press be- 
cause it could utter its own sentiments, and because it had a 
spiritual religion, and because it sloughed off the old mass of 
corruption and superstition, and came out and appealed to 
the hearts, to the intellect and brains of mankind ! (Applause.) 
It was then that this religion came in as active element in 
arousing and preserving the forces of society. 

With a free people and a free press there is little danger 
but that this civ. lization of ours, instead of dwindling away 
through old age -nto ultimate decay, will survive the wreck 
of time, and " h've," as Pope says, "through all time, extend 
through all extent." 

I do not want to delay the audience, (cries of "go on, go 
on,") but I cannot but glance for a brief period over the past 
hundred years. A hundred years ago ! A moment ago I 'as 
depreciating that length of time, and yet this hundred years 
that this world has traveled over since the first settlement 
was made in this valley, has seen more development and 
alacrity in the wheels of progress, more in the march of 
improvement, and more in the improvement of mankind, 
than has been known in all the hundred years, and in all the 
centuries preceding it. Napoleon, under the shadow of the 
monuments of the ancient Egyptians, said to his soldiers, 
" Men, forty centuries are looking down upon us !" We can 
say with pride to this generation, " A single century is look- 
ing down upon you" ; and within that century there has been 
more accomplished for mankind, more that is to live in the 



OLD WWH OF 'CASf fiftfOGifi . 95 

future, and more that is to elevate man than in all the centu- 
ries that has preceded it. 

One hundred years ago Washington, then at forty-one, was 
quietly dwelling in the shades of Mount Vernon, with his 
beautiful wife Martha, to whom he had been married some 
dozen years. He was not the great Washington then that 
future events set up and carved out, and that he carved out 
for them. One hundred years ago and Pitt and Fox, the 
great champions of English statesmanship, were almost in 
their infancy ; one hundred years ago and Napoleon was 
about four years old. It was in 1773 that Poland was 
divided, and as the poet has it. 

" Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell." 

One hundred years ago it was first that in the old world 
was struck the blow for the religious freedom of mankind. 
I am glad to say that it was in that year the Pope of Rome 
issued his famous bull against the Jesuits, and it was then 
proclaimed that they were to be wiped out from the history 
of religious associations in the world. It was one hundred 
years ago that Portugal struck the first blow to check the 
traffic in human beings. It was one hundred years ago that 
she struck the first blow given by civilized Europe to strike 
down the hydra-head of slavery. [Applause.] Thank God 
we have gone through a contest now after that hundred years 
and have blotted that stain out Irom our national escutcheon 
forever. 

But I do not want to detain and weary you. (Loud cries 
of " go on." " give us more.") I thank you for your indul- 
gence and courtesy extended to me on this occasion. I can 
assure you that the Press has a high mission to perform in 



96 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

this country, and under the blesssing of God I trust it will 
perform it properly, justly and intelligently for the advance- 
ment of all mankind, and with the best of intent. [Applause.] 
You will pardon me for not trespassing upon your patience 
longer. From the flattering adoration laid by the clergymen 
at the feet of the distinguished gentleman from New York 
by speakers to-day, I should say they were pretty much all 
"Prime Ministers." [Laughter.] However, they have 
made prime speeches on tnis occasion, and I thank them for it. 
As I am not a native of this section of country I cannot speak 
as to its reminiscences, or with, perhaps, the same enthusiasm 
as others. I can but profler my thanks for this reception, 
and leave t to others to recount the reminiscences of their 
youthful days. [Great applause.] 
Music by the Band. 

REV. W. F. LEWIS. 

Rector of St. Luke's Church. Cambridge, responded as 
follows to the toast, kt The Old Women of Cambridge" : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : In respond- 
ing to the toast to " The Old Women of Cambridge," after 
what has been said by those who are not only my elders and 
my betters, but are familiar with those for whom I am called 
upon to respond, I feel that my words must not only be few 
but short. 

If there is one theme that belongs alike to the past, the 
present and the future, that theme is woman, bound up as 
she is in all true joy, ever read} with her sympathy to lighten 
every care and every sorrow. On this centennial ami. versarv 
of the town of Cambridge, almost instinctively we glance 
around to reckon the men who have lived and toiled for 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE, 97 

Cambridge, old and new. It gives me plea'sure to stand as I 
do here to-day, and bid you remember the old women of 
Cambridge. All honor to them — all reverence to the bowed 
head and wrinkled brow. They tell us that Cambridge is 
one hundred years old to-day. They bid us look around and 
mark the transformation wrought therein. Shall I tell you 
15y whom the burden of that change has been borne ? By the 
old women of Cambridge, some of whom, helpless or bed- 
ridden, in patient sufiering, are debarred from participation 
in the joys of the day, yet happy in the thought that those 
they love are gathered around this festive scene, for 
" Woman's station is retreat ; 
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight, 
Domestic worth, that shuns too strong a light." 

Mr. President, I know that there is in the heart of every 
man and woman here present a response to the toast that I 
am called to respond to, fuller, deeper and more sincere than 
my poor lips can utter, and to that feeling, deep seated in 
every human breast, I leave the subject. 

The President then read the following letters and telegram 
from Mr. Clark : 

Salem, N. Y., August 28, 1873. 
To Messrs. Warner, McKie and Lourie : 

Gentlemen — I am greatly obliged, by your kind invitation 
to attend the Centennial of the old town of Cambridge to be 
held to-morrow. Up to a recent date I had hoped to be with 
you on the interesting occasion, that I might gratify social 
feelings not yet benumbed by age, with the kind converse 
and cheering presence of many dear old friends among you. 
But I shall have to content mvself with the hope that the 
pleasure of the occasion may equal your expectations, and 
that you all, and the aged especially, may have a day of pure 
enjoyment in the re-union of old friends and the recollections 
of by-gone years. I first saw your village in 1805. I was at 



98 ULMllMiaB ANNIVERSARY 

school in Lansingburgh. and to convenientlv secure mv return 
home at the close of the term, it was so. arranged that Rev. 
Mr. Fullerton. of Hebron, who had business of his own at 
Lansingburgh, should use mv father's horse and carriage for 
the jaunt, and bring me with him on bis return. This was 
the first time I had ever, helpless and alone, been thrown into 
the hands of the minister, and I confess I would a good deal 
rather have been bossed by anybody else, and were it not 
that home with all its attractions was awaiting me at the 
other end of the route, I might easily have been persuaded to 
bolt the whole arrangement. But on Saturday evening we 
reached Cambridge, where Mr. Fullerton had arranged with 
Mr. Chapman an exchange of pulpits the next day. My fear 
of the minister began to be modified by some sort of respect 
when we reached the first toll-gate. Mr. Fullerton, in the 
most serious tone, said to the gate-keeper. •• I expect to 
preach in Cambridge to-morrow." At the solemn announce- 
ment the gate was opened and we passed on — "toll free." 
The same potent key opened every gate on the road, and by 
the time we reached Cambridge I felt somewhat like admit- 
ting that a minister's presence might not be an evil under 
certain circumstances — for old Buck (m\ father's horse) and 
I were getting somewhat in the way of compensation for our 
risk in the free use of the new and beautiful road. But sixty 
eight years have wrought great changes in me. as well as in 
your pleasant village. Whatever may then have been my 
feeling towards the clergy, I am glad to say that for the cloth 
in general, and for my clerical friends in your village in 
especial. 1 entertain the utmost respect and regard. In the 
evening we reached that long, low. white house, late the 
residence of Mr. Robert Blair, then occupied by Rev. Mr. 
Chapman, and the next day edified the good people — Mr. D. 
as preacher and I as hearer, and on Monday reached Hebron 
and home. I seem to remember that there were a few 
houses, perhaps three or four, in the vicinity of the church, 
but between Mr. Chapman's and the church, if there were 
any, I don't remember them. A tavern was kept near the 
site of the Union House, from the door of which could be 
seen most of the few dwellings that then made up your vil- 
lage. Why, sirs, at the time of which 1 speak, not every 
man. woman and child on both sides (A' ■■ Blah's Brook" 
with a reinforcement from the former dusky denizens of the 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. 99 

forest, could have got up a fight on any subject, that in its in- 
tense vigor would have compared at all with your late 
unpleasantness on the school question, and which, whatever 
else it may show, is so eminently creditable to the grit and 
persistence of so many good men — men that individually may 
always be relied on for every good purpose, and who will 
cheerfully respond to every claim of society, excepting only 
the agreement of one school district with the other for mutual 
benefit. On to-morrow you will probably have with you my 
venerable friends John Weir, Benjamin Crocker, Eddy 
Bowen, Ahira Eldridge, John Barker, Isaac Brownell and 
others. What wonders these venerable men have seen in 
their day ! In 1S07 the application of steam to navigation — 
1812, war with Great Britain ; the iron plow in 1816 ; and 
about the same date the inauguration of our canal system. 
Then followed railroads. In 1S32 the road was finished 
from Albany to Utica, and now we have in operation over 
sixty-seven thousand miles. Carding, spinning, weaving and 
knitting mills became common. Sewing machines for the 
women, and mowers, reapers, and steam printing, and iron- 
clad ships. The rebellion and its mighty results — it cost the 
loy..d States three hundred thousand lives and over thirty- 
three hundred millions of treasure — it wiped out from our 
national escutcheon its only blot by emancipating four 
millions of slaves. Now we can hold up our head and feel 
that the constitutional right of freedom for every human be- 
ins: is no more an abstraction. The theme is both delightful 
and inexhaustible. But I must stop lest I further weary you 
with an old man's reminiscences. 

Most respectfully, John McDonald. 



Albany, August 26, 1873. 
Charles D. Warner and others, Committee Centennial Anni- 
versary, Cambridge : 
Gentlemen — I thank you for the honor conferred upon me 
in your invitation to attend your Centennial Anniversary on 
the 29th inst. I visited your place on the Fourth of July last 
under the impression that it was to take place on that day. 
As the weather proved quite rainy my walks among my old 
friends were quite limited. I regret to say that my business 
now is such that I shall not be able to attend. But let me 
assure you in the objects and purposes of your gathering, 



TOO CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

though absent in person, I shall be present in spirit. The 
prosperity of Cambridge in any respect will always be pleas- 
ant tidings to my ear. I shall gratefully cherish the memory 
of those with whom I was there associated in my youth and 
manhood, and shall take great pleasure in any evidence that 
such feelings are reciprocated on their part. 

'■ This fund attachment to the well known place, 
Whence first we started into life's long race, 
Maintains its hold with snch unfailing sway, 
We feel it e'en in age, and at onr latest day." 
Time's changes have been so great during the last thirty 
years that 1 am now a stranger to a majority of the people of 
Cambridge, but no place, not even the city where I have 
lived so long, seems to me more like home ; and it has 
always been my desire that when I come to the end of life's 
journey my remains may find a resting place with kindred 
and loved ones in your beautiful valley. 

Yours very respectfully, Austin H. Wells. 



Sharon, Conn., August 16. 1S73. 
Messrs. C. D. Warner, E. J. McKie, T. B. Lourie, Com- 
mittee : 
Gents — 1 deeply regret that owing to another imperative 
engagement it will be out of my power to join with you in 
the glad celebration of the Centennial of the old town of 
Cambridge. Though not a native of Cambridge. I am the 
next to it — a native of Argyle. But while Argyle was and 
continues strange to me. the "old town" has. from boyhood, 
always been a familiar home. Here my earliest and most 
enduring friendships were formed : here in the ancient and 
now defunct schoolhouse of the Maxwell district in Jackson 
my first essay in public life was made, and here, before the 
old yellow Academy departed southward on cumbrous 
rollers. I had the honor of teaching within its ancient and 
hallowed walls some of the best men and fairest daughters 
of the land. 1 have become thus to indulge in a peculiar 
a flection for old Cambridge, an affection that goes out most 
fervcntU toward all the living, and that holds must sacredly 
in charge the homes and the virtues of main who sleep so 
sweetly in your beautiful Woodlands Cemetery. Beassured, 
then, that were it in ni\ power, there is no spot on earth 
where 1 would more like to be on the 2(jth than in Fuller's 
Grove. Will you allow me to send you a sentiment: ■• To 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. IOI 

the memory of the teachers of the Cambridge Washington 
Academy, deceased — though dead they yet live in the useful 
careers and shining virtues of their hundreds of pupils scat- 
tered throughout the land." A. B. Bullions. 



State of Illinois, Executive Department, ) 
Springfield, August 25th, 1S73. J 

Charles D. Warner, E. J. McKie and T. B. Lourie : 

Gentlemen — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt 
of your kind invitation to be present at the Centennial of the 
old town of Cambridge, N. Y., to be held in Fuller's Grove, 
in the village of Cambridge, August 29, 1873, and in reply 
thereto I beg to express the sincere regret with which official 
duties commanding my attention at that time, I am compelled 
to decline any participation in the Centennial celebration of 
my former home. Yours very respectfully, 

John L. Beveridge. 



Centerville, Appanoon County, Iowa, 
August 23, 1873. 
Messrs. Warner, McKie and Lourie : 

Gentlemen — I cannot be one of you at your Centennial of 
the old town of Cambridge. I should enjoy it. hoping to see 
friends, faces familiar fifty years ago : hope you will have a 
good time in this re-union of old friends. It will be fifty 
years next month since I left Cambridge for a home in what 
'was then the ik West." Truly yours, 

Samuel Crosby. 
Volunteer toast from the western prairie : 

" The old town of Cambridge : May its prosperity be as 
lasting as its beautiful hills. S. C." 



HORNELLSVILLE, N. Y., AllgUSt 25, 1873. 

Mr. Charles D. Warner and others : 

Your letter of invitation to attend the Centennial of Cam- 
bridge Township was received some days ago. Nothing 
would afford me more pleasure than to be present on this 
occasion. The place of my birth is dear to me. Your invi- 
tation led me in memories' chariot once again to revisit the 
scenes of my childhood, youth and early manhood. My 
palmiest days were given to the then distant State of Indiana. 



102 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

where are those who started life with me. I am sorry I can 
not be present ; the health of my family will not permit. 

Yours truly, William T. Green. 



Rutland, Vt.. August 29. 1873. 
To Messrs. Warner. McKie and Lourie. Committee : 

Gentlemen — I am unexpectedly and unavoidably detained 
from Centennial to-day, greatly to my regret. Vermont 
sends greeting to old Cambridge to-day. May its coming 
hundred years be as prosperous as its past, and her children 
ever delight to do her honor. Henry Clark. 

Mr. Thompson — I feel we ought not and cannot disperse 
to-day without expressing our gratitude to the eminent gen- 
tlemen who have addressed us upon this occssion. and there- 
fore permit me to offer a resolution that the thanks of this 
audience be presented to the Hon. G. W. Jermain for the 
labor and pains he has bestowed in gathering so many facts 
and incidents in regard to the history of this old town of 
Cambridge, and that a copy be solicited for publication and 
preservation. 

The resolution, after amendment to include all the speakers, 
was passed. 

A resolution of thanks to the ladies for their services was 
also adopted. Also to the several committees engaged in 
this matter. 

Dr. Gillette alluded to the presence of several relics of 
olden times, and urged that they be gathered together and 
preserved for future centennials. 

The choir then sang the 

SONG OF THE OLD FOLKS. 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot 

And never brought to mind? 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 



OLD TOWN OP CAMBRIDGE. 103 

And songs of auld lang syne ? 
For auld lang syne we meet to-night, 

For auld lang syne ; 
To sing the songs our fathers sang 

In days of auld lang syne. 

We've passed through mai.y varied scenes 

Since youth's unclouded day ; 
And friends, and hopes, and happy dreams 

Time's hand hath swept away. 
And voices that once joined with ou*s, 

In days of auld lang syne, 
Are silent now, and blend no more 

In songs of auld lang syne. 

Yet ever has the light of song 

Illumed our darkest hours ; 
And cheered us on life's toilsome way, 

And gemmed our path with flowers. 
The sacred songs our fathers sang. 

Dear songs of auld lang syne, 
The hallowed songs our fathers sang 

In days of auld lang syne. 

Here we have met, here we may part, 

To meet on earth no more • 
And we may never sing again 

The cherished songs of yore. 
The sacred songs our fathers sang 

In days of auld lang syne. 
We may not meet to sing again 

The songs of auld lang syue. 

But when we've crossed the sea of life, 

And reached the heavenly shore, 
We'll sing the songs our fathers sing, 

Transcending those of yore. 



104 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY. 

We'll meet to sing diviner strains 

Than those of auld lang syne ; 
Immortal songs of praise, unknown 
In days of auld lang syne. 
The Doxology and benediction by Rev. Dr. Prime fol- 
lowed, after which the centennial celebrators dispersed. 



CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 



APPENDIX. 



THE CHECKERED HOUSE. 



BY REV. WALTER R. LONG. 



This notable Traveler's Home of former days was assigned 
me for a toast on the ever memorable August 29th, 1S73, the 
"Centennial Anniversary of the old Town of Cambridge." 
I was not apprised of the signal event in time to attend, which 
I shall ever deeply regret. 

NARRATIVE. 

It may not be too late even now to narrate briefly the story 
of the far famed " Checkered House." 

It was called thus simply from the fact that the clapboards 
were painted in checkers, red and white, in the by-gone 
century. 

u The first Tavern," says the latest historian of Cambridge, 
Hon. G. W. Jermain, " was a log house, kept by James Cow- 
den, where the Checkered House now is. which we have 
often heard called, by ' Old Settlers.' the ' Cowden 
Tavern.' " 

PECULIAR TASTE. 

Major Cowden was somewhat peculiar in his taste in 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. I07 

originating the checkered style of painting after a frame 
building was erected. 

The checker-board, a household fixture in olden times, 
doubtless suggested the design. Would that checkers had 
never been used for a more harmful purpose. 

Either in the year 1775 or 177S. according to tradition, 
there was no saw mill in Cambridge, and no boards were to 
be had for a coffin, and the late James Cowden, stepfather of 
Edward Long, deceased, went to Pittstown, Rensselaer 
county, and obtained a coffin made, except the putting 
together, and brought it to Cambridge on horseback upon 
the pummel of his saddle, which was the first coffin used in 
the old grave-yard, where the said Mr. Cowden was buried 
July 30, 1800, aged 6$ years ; his wife Sarah died May 9, 
1S11, aged also 65, and was buried by his side. 

REVOLUTIONARY ITEM. 

She (Sarah Comstock) was first married to Thomas Corn- 
stock, who bravely fell in the battle of Bennington, August 
16, 1777 ; then to Captain Edward Long ot Revolutionary 
memory, whose commission was signed by Governor George 
Clinton : afterwards to Major James Cowden, and last to 
Burgess Hall. 

The heroic death of her first husband gave her somewhat 
the reputation of a heroine at the recurring anniversaries of 
the battle of Bennington, which she invariably attended. 

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

I well remember seeing my father re-paint the Checkered 
House at two periods, several years apart. The first time 
the north and south ends, together with the front side, were 



108 CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

checkered. When the house was remodeled in iS^3, at a 
considerable expense, he painted the front side only in 
checkers, which perpetuates its name. An excellent stereo- 
scopic view has been taken by Wells & Cady. 

EXTENSIVE PATRONAGE. 

Bountiful provisions for both man and beast, with reason- 
able charges, together with the prompt and polite attentions 
of the host, secured a very extensive patronage. The inquiry 
was often reiterated by approaching teamsters, k * How far is 
it to the Checkered House?" 

With regret I have oft heard him obliged to say to weary 
and dust begrimed travelers at nightfall. " I can not enter- 
tain vou ; the house is full." Even then some would insist 
on staying though they had to sleep on the floor or in the 

barn. 

war of 1812. 

United States troops, volunteers and drafted recruits, in 
marching to and from the battles of Lake Champlain, fre- 
quently bivouacked there during the war for the establish- 
ment of maritime rights. 

I well recollect, in mv tenderest childhood, of being car- 
ried around among the troops and beholding the various 
implements of war, cooking utensils, and of seeing the soldiers 
partake of their substantial meals. 1 remember with shud- 
dering, to this day, how some took God's holy name in vain. 

More travelers found a quiet home there, probably, than 
in anv other hotel between Troy and Burlington. 

FAR-FAMED. 

The House was known by multitudes throughout this 
country, and by not a few in Other lands. Wherever I travel 



OLD TOWN OF CAMBRIDGE. I09 

over the broad domain of my native land, I meet many a one 
who has visited or seen what was familiarly styled in later 
years " Ed. Long's Checkered House." It was truly one of 
"the old land marks." 

PUBLIC SERVANT. 

The proprietor was not only a faithful landlord and devoted 
servant to the public, but an enthusiastic friend and supporter 
of the Washington County and State Agricultural Societies. 
He took special delight in exhibiting the productions of the 
farm, and the purest blooded imported cattle and horses, 
doing more to improve the breed of the latter than almost 
any man of his day. 

THE FIRST INN. 

The Checkered House was the first Inn that was erected in 
the old Town of Cambridge, before any meeting house was 
built. Ministers of all denominations were welcomed and 
their visits blessed. More than forty years since several 
members of the household were hopefully converted, three 
of whom have been summoned to the k> house not made with 
hands." 

The Inn was dear to me in which I was born, where I first 
bowed at the family altar, pledged myself to temperance, and 
consecrated my life to the Gospel ministry with the appro- 
bation of my father, who died in peace and hope August 10. 
1S60. He had dwelt in the Inn nearly seventy years, when 
it fell to my brother, Colonel B. Long, and has been occupied 
since, chiefly, by tenants as a private residence. 

ANCESTRY. 

It is with virtuous pride I can lookback to Edmund Wells 
as an honorable ancestor on my mother's side, the only 



IIO CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 

patentee who became a settler, and was also the first magis- 
trate of the town of Cambridge. Da\ id Long was a promi- 
nent Director of the Northern Turnpike Company, incorpo- 
rated in 1799 ; Grandfather Long was a commissioned officer 
in the Revolutionary War ; and my father was drafted in the 
war of 1S12. 

PUBLIC HOUSES A NECESSITY. 

They are truly necessary for the entertainment of the trav- 
eling public. Whenever thev shall be kept on Christian 
principle, as ultimately they will be. thev will furnish the most 
desirable resorts of the public, where they can enjoy the 
blessings of a Christian home. Then they will unite with 
the school and church in promoting the world's civilization 
and evangelization. 

BIBLE VIEW. 

Early mention is made of the Inn at Bethlehem, the place 
where the infant Jesus was born and •* laid in a manger be- 
cause there was no room for them in the Inn." Not because, 
as some arc wont to suppose, of hostility to Joseph and Mary 
and the infant Saviour, but simply from the large number 
congregated there to be taxed. 

Later mention is made of the li Three Taverns." Roman 
Christians walked out on the celebrated Appian Way, or 
road from Rome to Capua, styled the "Queen of Great 
Thoroughfares" to the *• Three Taverns," notable as a place of 
refreshment and entertainment, about forty-six miles from 
Rome, where most of them remained for Paul's coming, 
while the others proceeded about ten miles further to the 
Appii Forum to meet him, and escort the illustrious " Am- 
bassador in bonds" back to the Imperial city. 



CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY. Ill 

In conclusion, permit me to say, as a native of the old 
town of Cambridge, named, probably, in honor of the Duke 
of Cambridge, and also as a resident for a goodly number of 
years of Washington County, named in worthy acknowledge- 
ment of the heroic achievements of her sons in the war of the 
revolution, and especially in honor of the reputed Father 
of his country, I shall ever read with deepest interest the 
record of the Centennial Anniversary of the town that o*ave 
me birth, and lament that I was not present to share in 
festivities that can be enjoyed but once in a hundred years, 

The following letter which has been received explains 
itself: 

Albany, September i, 1873. 
R. K. Crocker, Secretary Centennial Committee. 

Dear Sir : I desire to say a word in response to the vote 
of thanks which the Centennial meeting was pleased to o-ive 
me for my historical address, and which I would not pro- 
tract the closing of the meeting at the time to say. Cambridge 
was my foster mother, and adopted me when a lad. sixty- 
years ago, and brought me up, and I can never make any just 
return for all the salutary influences, and good impressions, 
and many kindnessess which I received from the good people 
of the town in my early years, and which have been of inesti- 
mable value to me in my life thus far. I received many 
tokens of their favor, and evidences of their confidence which 
I can not forget, and for which I shall ever be truly o-rateful : 
and for the privilege now to have met with the associates of 
my youth who still remain, and with them and their descend- 
ants of several generations, to have been honored with the 
part allotted to me at their Centennial celebration. I feel that 
the thanks belong to me to render, and I return them with 
unfeigned gratitude. Yours truly, 

G. W. Jermain. 




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